LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



..-.. ©optjrigJft f o 

Shelf. .31X1 V 

^ri3 






UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MISSIONARY LANDSCAPES 
I 



IN THE 



DARK CONTINENT 



N 



/ 



REV. JAMES JOHNSTON, A.T.S. 

AUTHOR OF "MISSIONARY POINTS AND PICTURES," ETC. 



V 

s A X 

NEW YORK 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY 

182 FIFTH AVENUE 

\ 



*A'V 




JJTl | 



Copyright, 1892, by 

Anson D. F. Randolph & Company 

(Incorporated). 



PRESS OF 

EDWARD O. JENKINS' SON 

NEW YORK 



PREFACE 



In the present volume the author has sketch- 
ed in outline a few of the notably fascinating 
African spheres where the missionary vanguards 
have established their outposts. The triumphs 
achieved by these spiritual pioneers merit wide 
and generous appreciation in all lands. Against 
the two oppressive shadows of native life in 
Africa : heathenism and slavery, they have un- 
swervingly measured their strength, prowess, 
and Christian chivalry. Plunging into pathless 
wilds, grappling with the densest ignorance, 
combating the most degrading forms of idol- 
atry, and steadfastly resisting the horrors of 
tribal savagery, these knight-errants of heaven 
have placed the feet of Africa's dusky children 
upon 

. . . . " The great world's altar-stairs, 
That slope through darkness up to God." 

(3) 



4 Preface. 

To the missionary's self-abnegating and pro- 
longed toils living monuments bear eloquent 
testimony. 

His vocation no longer calls for an apology 
to the world. The missionary has translated 
the claims of foreign missions from the realm 
of speculation and opinion into the region of 
fact and history, by demonstrating that the 
negro of the lowest aboriginal type is capable 
of being raised to " heights of mental and 
moral glory." As eminently, the missionary 
is an international ally of science, commerce, 
statesmanship, and civilisation. When Dr. 
Moffat spoke on African Missions in the Nave 
of Westminster Abbey, November 30, 1875, he 
made the remark that, " Missionaries to a bar- 
barian people deserve a vote of thanks from 
the commercial world." Without war-axe, 
spear, or sword, they have been the trader's 
patron and chief friend. 

These ensigns of the Gospel have displayed 
sanctified courage, and something of the high 
and noble life of such crusaders as Mackay, 
Coillard, Laws, Steere, Hore, Arnot, the Comb- 



Preface. 5 

ers, Grenfell, Crowther, Wilmot-Brooke, and 
others, is narrated in the following pages. 
Their Spartan deeds, stamped on the plains of 
the Dark Continent, have stirred the admira- 
tion of the Christian nations. For the sake of 
neglected and down-trodden Africa, missionary 
martyrdoms present an unparalleled record ; 
heroic spirits having served and fallen in legion, 
whose dust lies in the lonely, scattered " God's 
Acres " on Africa's shores. 

Glowingly said Henry Ward Beecher of the 
missionary character : " The man who under- 
takes to lift the globe in the sympathy of 
Christ who said, ' The field is the world '; the 
man who goes out of his parish, and out of his 
town, and out of his nation, and goes into the 
great stream of universal humanity — that is 
the man who follows Christ." In a similar, 
impassioned vein Canon Liddon at St. Paul's 
Cathedral, alluding to the endeavour of mission- 
aries to plant the standard of the Cross among 
African races observed that, by supporting so 
grand an object : " Nothing was more truly 
Christian and philanthropic, or more worthy 



i 



6 Preface. 

of men who hope to have a part in the resur- 
rection to Eternal Life." By the imperishable 
victories of missions concerning which fresh 
and reliable information will be supplied in 
this work, a loftier enthusiasm is being enkin- 
dled for the sacred cause, 

The customs, languages, characteristics, and 
pursuits of the native tribes, and of several 
portions of the African Continent occupied by 
the missionaries, have been carefully pourtray- 
ed. A hearty recognition has been accorded 
to Africa's explorers and discoverers ; a class 
of heroes, second only to the missionary, on 
the roll of honour. From the days of Bruce, 
Mungo Park, and Clapperton, to the time of 
Burton, Livingstone, " the king of African 
pioneers," Speke, Grant, Stanley, and Cam- 
eron, celebrated travellers have towered in 
the van, in drawing aside the veil which has 
shrouded the interior of that immense coun- 
try. " Daring, always daring," the soldier of 
exploration penetrating its mystery and vast- 
ness has incited the missionary to pitch his 
tent amid the myriads of poor savages in the 



Preface. 7 

heart of Darkest Africa. In breaking through 
the confines of a land of impenetrable silence 
the missionary and the explorer have been 
comrades, august rivals. 

Of the broad features of African geography 
an exact knowledge is of recent date. Only 
thirty-five years have elapsed since the mighty 
prize of the source of the Nile was wrested, 
and, within the last thirty years, — a golden age 
of discovery, — more has been done for the re- 
clamation of the " Lost Continent " than in 
the previous 3,300 years. To remove the pall 
of ignorance which hung over the depths of 
Central Africa illustrious bodies of exploring 
parties have exhibited dauntless resolution, in- 
trepid spirit, boundless resource, and vast en- 
terprise ; nor has any other continent claimed 
so many gallant victims ere its secrets were 
disclosed. Through the services of these pa- 
cific invaders civilisation is beginning to shed 
its illuminating rays over the dark places of 
Africa, and Christianity to write its name upon 
the forehead of African humanity. 

In prophetic tones a great missionary has 



8 Preface. 

declared, " Africa will be saved"; and, with her 
emancipation, the demon of slavery, that rem- 
nant of centuries of tyranny and barbarism, 
will finally be driven from her coasts. 

England, 1892. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I.— Nyasa, "The Lake of the Stars," . u 
II. — In the Empire of the Moors, . . 35 
III. — Life Pictures from North African 

Lands, 55 

IV. — Evangelisation in Egypt and the 

Nile Valley, 73 

V. — Uganda under Conquest, ... 89 
VI.— The Universities' Mission to Cen- 
tral Africa, 107 

VII. — Pioneering in the Barotsi Kingdom, 

on the Upper Zambesi, . .123 
VIII. — Sunrise in Kafraria, South Africa, . 145 
IX.— Planting the Flag of Missions in 

Katanga, 159 

X.— Missionary Advance up the Congo 

Waterway, 179 

XL — Missions on the Niger River, . 197 
XII.— A Romance of the Equatorial Sou- 
dan, 215 

XIIL— On the Banks of Lake Tanganyika, 235 

(9) 



NYASA, "THE LAKE OF THE STARS." 



(ii) 



i 



I. 

NYASA, "THE LAKE OF THE STARS." 

A DEEPENING interest gathers around Lake 
Nyasa the shores of which were surveyed, less 
than thirty years ago, for missionary aggression, 
by the Rev. James Stewart, at the request of the 
Free Church of Scotland. In face of the recurring 
slave wars he intimated that any immediate mis- 
sion inauguration would be futile. Following 
Livingstone's death, occurring on the 4th of 
May, 1873, Mr. Stewart, who had in the mean- 
time been appointed head of Lovedale College, 
South Africa, propounded in 1874 a fresh 
scheme. These views were shared by Mr. 
Young, R.N., author of " Nyasa," also a notable 
explorer, and, in 1875, this pioneer made the 
first circumnavigation of Lake Nyasa which 
was discovered to have a length of 350 miles, a 
breadth averaging from 16 to 60 miles, and ly- 
ing in a remarkable hollow of the surrounding 

(13) 



14 JVyasa, "The Lake of the Stars!' 

tableland, 1,520 feet above the sea-level. The 
Free Church then arose with courageous aim 
to publish light and liberty throughout Nyasa- 
land in obedience to the Master's commission, 
in response to Livingstone's last prayer, and in 
compassion for Africa's benighted humanity. 

The resolve of the Free Church was counten- 
anced and supported unitedly by the Reformed 
Presbyterian, the Established, and United 
Presbyterian churches of Scotland. A year 
later the Church of Scotland founded its pros- 
perous mission in the Shire" Highlands, above 
the Murchison Cataracts, at Blantyre, — named 
after the Lanarkshire village where David Liv- 
ingstone was born. Two adjacent stations were 
subsequently erected at Domasi and Chirazulo. 
Supplied with a score of European and five na- 
tive missionaries the Blantyre Mission has done 
effective industrial, evangelistic, and medical 
service, and likewise conducted school-training 
in excellent style. Its current yearly outlay 
amounts to ^4,000, and upon the entire work- 
ing of the mission ^40,000 has been spent. 
Among the honoured names on the Mission 



Nyasa, "The Lake of the Stars? 15 

staff, Dr. C. Scott, the eminent principal, and 
Mr. Hetherington, are well-known representa- 
tives. At Blantyre to-day stands the finest ec- 
clesiastical edifice between the two extremes of 
Egypt and Cape Colony, recently built by na- 
tive labour under European direction. 

Planted in the healthiest of situations the 
Blantyre Mission has been less exposed to cli- 
matic perils than the Livingstonia Mission 
which has suffered the heaviest losses at its ad- 
vanced outposts. Lately this immunity enjoyed 
at Blantyre through 15 years of arduous and oc- 
casionally perilous labours, ended. Within a 
brief period of three months in 1891 three of 
the missionaries were fatally stricken. If not 
martyrs in the ordinary sense of the name, the 
story of their lives and deaths nevertheless 
places them in the rank of the noblest heroes. 
The trio of Scotsmen, Henry Henderson, Dr. 
John Bowie, and Robert Cleland, were all stu- 
dents of the University of Edinburgh. To Mr. 
Henderson belongs the honour of having chosen 
the site of the Blantyre Mission. A man of 
delicate tact in winning native confidence, en- 



1 6 Nyasa, " The Lake of the Stars." 

dued with a genuine missionary instinct and 
ideal and, of an energy so untiring, that the 
natives described him, " the man that never 
sleeps." At Quillimane, on the 12th of Febru- 
ary, 1 891, Mr. Henderson died of fever, his 
health shattered by hardships and his spirit 
crushed by the death of his wife and child from 
diphtheria, a few days previously. The memory 
of this pioneer missionary has been preserved 
by his old college friends, Lord President Rob- 
ertson and Lord Stormonth-Darling, who have 
erected a chaste tablet at Kinclaven, " to com- 
memorate in the church of his native parish 
a life of enterprise, gentleness, courage, self- 
denial, and absolute devotion to the service of 
Almighty God." Dr. Bowie, the medical mis- 
sionary, after achieving a brilliant university 
career and obtaining a lucrative practice in 
London, offered himself in 1887 for the Blan- 
tyre Mission. To receive the medical skill of 
the good surgeon during his brief ministry of 
healing in the Shire Highlands the afflicted 
natives came in crowds. Of the doctor's kindly 
attention to the lowliest African touching in- 



Nyasa, "The Lake of the Stars" 17 

cidents are related, and, very pitiful are the 
circumstances which terminated his devoted 
life. Ere quite recovering from influenza he 
performed the operation of tracheotomy on his 
sister's child attacked by diphtheria. Bravely 
running all risks he repeatedly sucked the dan- 
gerous tube which only gave temporary relief 
to the child. Within twelve hours the little 
sufferer died. Immediately following the child's 
funeral, its bereaved mother, Mrs. Henderson, 
was seized by the disease, and Dr. Bowie rising 
from a sick-bed attempted to save her life by 
means of tracheotomy. The dreaded foe had 
made too rapid progress on his sister's constitu- 
tion, and in a short time Mrs. Henderson passed 
away, her remains being laid to rest beside 
those of her dear child. And then the same viru- 
lent assailant attacked the self-abnegated broth- 
er, and for him — " The long self-sacrifice of life 
is o'er." 

The third of this group, Robert Cleland, a 
Coatbridge engineer in his youthful days, be- 
came the first missionary on Mount Milanje, 
about four days' journey from the Blantyre 



1 8 Nyasa, " The Lake of the Stars!' 

headquarters. To have the joy of being classed 
a missionary to the heathen, was an " objective " 
for which he had laboriously toiled, and had his 
life, brief, yet fruitful, been prolonged, there 
was promise of high achievements. An elo- 
quent portraiture sets Cleland and his brother- 
missionaries before the world as " unwaver- 
ing in determination, unfailing in their faith 
in God, and unwearying in their devotion to 
Africa, and their love for the African," the 
study of whose careers must incite like-minded 
servants of Christ to take up the standards 
which have fallen from their consecrated hands. 
By the Free Church of Scotland the Liv- 
ingstonia Mission was originally established at 
Cape Maclear, at the south end of Lake Nyasa, 
a settlement by and by practically abandoned 
on account of the deadly malaria rising from 
the imprisoned poisonous agents in the dense 
soil and undrained marshy plains. In its place, 
Bandawe, lat.- 12°, half-way up the west coast 
of the lake was chosen, and, from five centres 
the Livingstonia Mission has scattered heavenly 
rays. Over the growing organizations presides 



Nyasa, " The Lake of the Stars." 19 

the Rev. Dr. Laws, whom Consul Johnston char- 
acterizes the greatest man hitherto known in 
Nyasa-land. On the eve of his furlough in 1892 
he had been toiling, with slight intermission, 
for sixteen years in Central Africa, directing 
the policy and expansion of the Mission. With 
Livingstone and Steere he may be bracketed, 
and, as signally, merits the praise of Christen- 
dom. It was in 1877 that he explored a part 
of the western shore in company with Dr. 
Stewart of Scottish renown. A year afterwards 
Dr. Laws, joined by the late Mr. James Stew- 
art, C.E., made a journey of 700 miles along 
the southern and westerly skirts of the lake 
and the hill country beyond. The doctor's in- 
exhaustible activity has been marked by medi- 
cal services, the direction of schools, building 
of stations, negotiations with fierce tribes, 
pastoral engagements and invaluable literary 
undertakings. At Bandawe alone, 7,000 medi- 
cal cases were treated in 1887, and in the re- 
spective schools nearly two thousand children 
are getting instruction. Advance is every- 
where visible in spite of obstacles which arise 



20 Nyasa, u T/ie Lake of the Stars." 

from fifteen different tribes speaking as many 
languages, with minor varying dialects. The 
Chirenji, Chitonga, Chigunda, and Angoni 
tongues have been reduced to writing, and of 
the sixteen publications in the speech of the 
natives, gospels, hymns, dictionaries, and prim- 
ers have chief attention. It is some years since 
the entire New Testament was translated into 
Chinyanja, and one of the latest linguistical 
triumphs is the completion of the Chinyanja 
Dictionary, a scholarly volume of 231 pages, 
executed by Dr. Laws, amid the raids of slave 
marauders, tribal warfare, Arab insurrections, 
and the vicissitudes attending the founding 
and supervision of new stations. Conquests of 
this order make the doctor a leader by whose 
missionary apostleship the Gospel has been 
marvellously glorified. 

On the Nyasa field the stations comprise 
Bandawe, Mombera's, Chineyera, Chirenji, Chin- 
ga, Cape Maclear, Chikusi's, Malindu, and Che- 
were's — fifty miles west of Lake Nyasa. Pro- 
spective stations are afoot at Karonga's, at the 
north end of Nyasa, renowned as a trading 



Nyasa, "The Lake of the Stars!' 21 

depot of the African Lakes Company, which 
the Arabs failed to capture at the time of Cap- 
tain Lugard's defence ; and at Ukukwi or Kar- 
aramuka, in a fascinatingly situated forest- clad 
country to the northeast of the lake, where the 
Moravians are opening a mission. Thirty-one 
workers are enrolled on the Free Church staff, 
including seven ordained medical missionaries^ 
nine artisans and teachers, and a dozen native 
evangelists. The Dutch Reformed Church at 
Stellenbosch, South Africa, is now warmly co- 
operating in the extensions of the Livingstonia 
Mission, upon which a sum of £60,000 in all, 
has been expended, and about £5,000 per 
annum devoted to this spiritually crowned 
enterprise. 

From a holiday ramble which the Rev. Law- 
rence Scott a North of England clergyman 
.nade in Central Africa, in 1888, with some 
contempt for perils and fatigues, in order to 
visit a brother-in-law, to carry out a botanical 
expedition, and, to benefit his fellow-creatures 
in those far-off regions, realistic glimpses at 
first hand were obtained of the native races. 



22 JVyasa, " The Lake of the Stars." 

Passing the picturesque Murchison Cataracts 
he visited the powerful tribe of the Makololo, 
welded together by native followers of Living- 
stone and lately ruled over by a powerful chief, 
whose death in 1887 was deeply regretted. 
The Makololo, always friendly to the English, 
a fine, independent race, capable of work, open 
to civilisation, and competent for self-defence, 
had invariably been able to keep out both the 
Arabs and the Portuguese. On the west of 
Lake Nyasa, and a little inland, were situated 
the great tribe of the Angoni, — a race of Zulu 
origin, men of imposing stature, warlike, brave, 
and hitherto strong enough to hold their own 
against any Arabs opposing them. Northwards, 
a different, and, in some respects, a higher type 
of race, was found. Their huts were large and 
well built, with some attempt at ornament and 
painting ; their streets, or rather the paths be- 
tween the huts, were clean, and swept out 
every morning ; their gardens skilfully culti- 
vated, and their numerous cattle most atten- 
tively cared for. This tribe, or perhaps series 
of tribes of one origin and one language, the 



Nyasa, "The Lake of the Stars" 23 

Wa-Nkonde and the Wam-Wamba, occupy the 
extreme northwest and northern shores of Lake 
Nyasa, a lovely and most fertile plain reaching 
up into the hills which divide Nyasa from 
Tanganyika. These were the finest people seen, 
happy, contented, industrious, peace-loving, 
with qualities which could easily be developed. 
There is every probability that the Makololo, 
the Angoni, the Wam-Wamba, and minor 
tribes in these territories might in the course 
of a few years with tact and judgment be 
united into one powerful nation and, guided 
by Englishmen, whom they are anxious to have 
settled amongst them, they would maintain 
their independence, and so form a decisive 
check upon the operation of the slave-trader. 

Where the missionary, as may be supposed, 
has not made a settlement the children of the 
natives exposed to Arab invaders suffer dread- 
fully from deeds of oppression and slavery. 
Writing from Karonga, in 1889, Dr. Kerr Cross 
describes seeing a small caravan of slaves in 
that district which consisted merely of five 
boys and two girls. The day's march was over, 



24 Nyasa, "The Lake of the Stars. 



and they sat on the ground ; but the " goree- 
stick " was still on their neck. The leaders of 
the caravan were greatly perturbed at the doc- 
tor's presence and denounced him vehemently. 
Of the captives said the doctor, " Poor things, 
I pitied them with all my heart, and when I 
saw their upturned eyes and mangled hands 
and bruised, skinny bodies, and heard the white- 
robed ruffian talk loudly of ' his property,' I 
felt desperately inclined to break his head. I 
was enabled to rule my anger, I am glad to say. 
Next morning the same caravan came a few 
miles off their way, that they might march past 
our house and defy us to touch them. Surely 
Ethiopia, in scenes such as these, pleads for 
help, and stretches out her hands to God and 
to us against the Arab and his guns." 

Another letter from Ukukwi of later date, de- 
picts more of this nefarious work by the villain- 
ous Merere, chief of a large Arab country, and his 
accomplices, two Arab bands, on Mwasyoghi, a 
country lying at the foot of a giant hill, Rungwe, 
to the extreme north of the Livingstone Range. 
The inoffensive natives in one of the villages 



Nyasa, "The Lake of the Stars*" 25 



scarcely awakened, tried to defend themselves 
and to save their wives and children. So heavy 
was the murderous fire of the Arab guns upon 
them that they were driven back, and finally 
routed from their homesteads. A number of 
neighbouring villages were sacked and fired, 
the inhabitants of which were either killed, 
chained, or obliged to fly to the hills, and up- 
wards of thirty women, with their babies, and 
several young girls captured. The miscreants 
securely entrenching themselves in a stockade 
of bamboos and banana-stems, settled down to 
enjoy themselves in their own brutish way, 
gorging themselves on the spoil, and glutting 
their savage lust by outraging the women 
and young girls. Disturbed in the midst of 
these fiendish perpetrations by some children 
weeping over the mutilated bodies of their 
mothers, certain of the inhuman wretches " un- 
able to quiet the bairns clubbed some, and cast 
others into the flames of the burning houses. 
This is the Arab in Africa ! Oh, God, raise up 
friends for this poor, bleeding, unhappy land ! " 
At Kopakopa's village, in the middle of 1! 



26 Nyasa, "The Lake of the Stars." 

might have been seen five women and five 
children stolen from their own village with the 
slave-sticks on their necks. During the night 
the end of the sticks — young trees — were tied 
to the roofs of the houses, attached to which 
the captives lay through the chilly nights, the 
possible prey of hyenas or other animals. In 
the day-time, until sold or slain, they were al- 
lowed to crawl about the fronts of the houses 
always dragging the tree behind. That same 
year in August, Dr. Cross says : " The other 
day, some of our men, returning from Ukanga 
on the south, came across the body of a child 
lately thrown to the crocodiles. It was the 
old story. The captive mother was swooning 
under the load of the ' goree-stick ' and her 
infant, when her capturer seized the child and 
threw it into the stream." 

In sweet contrast to these dark tragedies, 
writes this earnest missionary at the termination 
of the struggle with the Arabs on the Nyasa- 
Tanganyika plateau : " Notwithstanding all that 
is disadvantageous,! have a most interesting little 
school held every forenoon under the trees out- 



Nyasa, "The Lake of the Stars" 2 J 

side the stockade. There are 300 names on 
the roll, with 250 in attendance. There are six 
classes, each taught under six giant Misyungute 
trees, and the children are advancing. All my 
little scholars at the school are children from 
the Wankonde villages — the very children that 
the Arabs fought for and longed to enslave. 
They are every one of them naked and help- 
less. God has rescued them from the slaver's 
cruel hand, and they look to us. Could not 
the children of the Sabbath-schools at home do 
a little for the-300 naked, helpless Wankonde 
children whom we have graciously saved from 
the cruel goree-stick and slavery ? " 

The schools dotting the west coast of Lake 
Nyasa, in 1892, are the brightest spots in the 
land, and where school-buildings have not yet 
been erected, the work is usually done in the 
open air, beneath the shade of a big tree, when 
one can be found. Lessons are taught in read- 
ing, writing, arithmetic, and Bible instruction. 
The fathers and mothers unable to read them- 
selves, cannot help their children, and, not in- 
frequently, some of them think that their chil- 



28 Nyasa, " The Lake of the Stars." 

dren should be paid for attending the school. 
African children in the strongly-defended vil- 
lages have all kinds of ingenious amusements, 
of which Dr. Laws has sent details. The boys* 
chief game is with an india-rubber ball, in which 
they take two sides, and try to keep the ball 
always to their own party. Another game is 
played with beans or small stones put in hollow 
cups scraped out of the ground, and a curious 
one consists of two rows of boys sitting oppo- 
site to each other on the ground. Each of the 
boys sets up a little stick before him, which his 
companion over against it tries to knock down 
with little bits of calabash put on a pivot, by 
making them spin across at it. The boy pick- 
ing up these tries in the same way to knock 
down the other boy's peg. The girls amuse 
themselves chiefly by imitating their mothers 
pounding grain and grinding meal and sifting 
it, or sometimes the little ones may be seen 
with a piece of cassava-root or sweet potato 
tied on their backs, as their mothers carry their 
babies. 

Under the Free Church Mission flag, mission- 



Nyasa, "The Lake of the Stars." 29 

aries in whose breasts burns the fire of action 
are serving. In 1891, Dr. Kerr Cross returned 
from his home-furlough with his bride — a 
step-daughter of the late Dr. Turner, the famous 
South Sea missionary — for his station in North 
Nyasa-land. His gentle bearing, modesty, sil- 
very-toned utterance, and refined features are 
unsuggestive of one who has exhibited the 
most chivalrous gallantry in ministering to a 
handful of men defending themselves against 
overwhelming bands of Arabs. In this fight 
for existence and the humanity of the slave at 
Karonga's, Dr.Kerr Cross, the faithful physi- 
cian, will ever be associated with Captain 
Lugard and his brave garrison. Other splendid 
representatives in Livingstonia who are speed- 
ing the course of missionary empire embrace Dr. 
Elmslie, the translator of a primer in the lan- 
guage of the war-loving 'Ngoni ; Dr. Henry, 
of South 'Ngoni ; and the Rev. A. C. Murray, 
of the West Nyasa Highlands. To these add 
the name, greatly revered, of the late youthful 
Rev. J. Alex. Bain, whose task of love, begin- 
ning in 1883 at the most northerly outpost of 






o 



o Nyasa, "The Lake of the Stars!' 



Lake Nyasa, was continued with fervid conse- 
cration and unceasing hardships until death 
called him home from the sunny shores of 
Bandawe on the 16th of May, 1889. 
! Through the formation of the African Lakes 
Company, in 1878, for the development of the 
country's resources and materially reinforcing 
the cause of missions, a staunch ally was ob- 
tained. In a remarkable measure the mission- 
aries have been indebted to the generous sym- 
pathy and sagacious counsels of the Living- 
stonia Committee at home, of which Mr. J. 
Stevenson, t of "Stevenson Road" fame, and 
Mr. J. Campbell White, are known columns of 
strength. The latter gentleman is inviting 
Scotchmen to raise .£20,000, to cover the fifth 
period of five years, in order that the work of 
the Livingstonia Mission may be consolidated 
and extended. 

Of the outlook over Nyasa-land there is a 
broadening sunrise. Mission and civilising 
agencies are progressing. Strangers unarmed 
are growingly trusted by the natives, and be- 
neath the banner of the united white influence 



Nyasa, u The Lake of the Stars." 31 

the tribes are peaceably disposed. Outside 
these protected oases of civilisation slave-raid- 
ing has its bloody and devastating triumphs. 
Against the chiefs engaged in this iniquitous 
traffic Commissioner Johnston has been waging 
a military crusade, and, throughout the British 
Protectorate of Nyasa-land his attacks on the 
Arabs, though attended by loss to his own 
forces, were partially victorious at the close of 
1 89 1 and early in 1892. The anticipated fu- 
ture successes of this gallant officer throw a 
hopeful light upon the destiny of Lake Nyasa. 
In advancing the civilisation of Nyasa-land, 
" customs " are being established, and postal 
regulations facilitated. Land is eagerly pur- 
chased, giving an impetus to agricultural pros- 
pects. That the health of Europeans can be 
guaranteed is demonstrated by the sixteen 
years' experience of settlers on Central African 
uplandsc So welcome a piece of intelligence 
does not materially affect the opinion of Afri- 
can experts that Africa can only be cultivated, 
on a broad scale, by her own people. In this 
direction native labour is being employed and 



32 Nyasa, " The Lake of the Stars ." 

the natives induced to live on the plantations. 
As regards entrance to the lake region it is 
stated that a direct passage can be made from 
the Indian Ocean, via the Zambesi and Shire" 
Rivers, as far as the foot of the Murchison Cat- 
aracts. 

Dr. Kerr Cross tells a romantic story of the 
introduction of the coffee-plant into Nyasa-land. 
By way of experiment the curators of Kew 
Gardens sent out to Blantyre about ten years 
ago a number of slips of the coffee-plant. One 
of these alone survived the long journey and 
happily, it was of hardy growth. The plant 
took kindly to the soil, grew, bore seed, proved 
itself wonderfully prolific, and to-day is the 
progenitor of a million of plants growing on a 
single estate, besides hundreds of thousands 
on neighbouring lands. The coffee produced 
realises a good profit in the London market. 
As Dr. Cross says : " That little cutting from 
Kew bids fair to have a mighty civilising influ- 
ence on this part of Africa, and to confer an 
inestimable boon on its people." 

The tribes around Nyasa are a thoroughly 



Nyasa, " The Lake of the Stars.' 1 55 

interesting race of people ; skilful in a variety 
of native trades and willing to adopt Western 
ideas and handicrafts. Similar to their kins- 
men on Afric's shores they yield to supersti- 
tions, depraved beliefs, witchcraft, and savage 
passions. Most dreaded of their foes is the 
Arab raider, in whose scorched tracks weak 
and solitary tribes are marched off in chains, 
" with a gun in front and one behind," or 
slaughtered, which gives a world of pathos to 
the observation that the African has been the 
prey of the slaver ever since the dynasties of 
the Pharaohs and is the blood-chattel of the 
slaver to-day. Scorned by multitudes better 
stationed, the dark negro ruthlessly persecuted 
by woes, misfortunes, and servitude, unhelped 
for ages, was more sinned against than sinning, 
and with all his barbarous habits, idolatries, and 
ugliness, he was a man, crying from end to end 
of Africa for his heaven-born rights. 

For the salvation of these lost ones the mis- 
sionaries of the Eternal King have penetrated 
the wildest regions and, from the dense forest 
banks of the Ruo River, over the Shire pla- 



34 Nyasa, " Z!^^ Z^^ of the Stars" 

teaus, by the silvery beach of Lake Nyasa, up 
the Stevenson Road, across the waters of Tan- 
ganyika, and forward to the boundaries of the 
Congo Free State, they speak of the peace of 
faith, the joy of hope, and, of the life everlast- 
ing. 



IN THE EMPIRE OF THE MOORS. 



(35; 



II. 



IN THE EMPIRE OF THE MOORS. 



FOR a picture of a nation's decay, corruption, 
darkness, and oppression, Morocco has an unhap- 
py reputation. By missionaries and travellers 
alike the moral condition of the people is pour- 
trayed in sombre hues ; a consequence partly due 
to bad government which in turn reflects in 
some measure the lawless habits of the native 
tribes. The wretched system of administration, 
— low and even declining, and universally ex- 
posed to abuse and imposition, — is vastly inferior 
to the Mohammedan rule exercised two cen- 
turies ago. Judged by a fair European standard 
government in Morocco has only a shadow of 
existence. The Sultan, Muley Hassan, has 
neither absolute power nor entire responsibility 
over his dominions. He is a despot of limited au- 
thority. Spending much of his time in the harem 

or, travelling between his two chief cities — Mo- 

(37) 



38 The Empire of the Moors. 

rocco and Fez, some three hundred miles apart 
— the Sultan is content with the homage of 
sovereignty and a sufficient income for his 
pleasure, station, court, and pageants. The 
control of Morocco is practically in the hands 
of Kaids, governors of the three and thirty dis- 
tricts into which the empire is partitioned. 
Their sway, characteristic of Eastern nations, 
is marked by cruelties and extortions on an 
infamous scale. The officials according to 
their rank fleece the natives, and infrequently 
does a superior interfere. Myriads of acres of 
fine tracts of soil lie in " flat idleness " on ac- 
count of the burdens imposed by tax-gatherers. 
This lamentable condition of things results in 
multitudes of the people existing in squalor 
and destitution, and it is not surprising that in 
every department of life retrogression is seen 
or, that Morocco is a couple of thousand years 
to the rear of the civilisation of Great Britain 
and America. 

Morocco — the land of song, renown, and 
classic beauty — has, for ages been strangely 
neglected by the civilised world. To an un- 



The Empire of the Moors. 39 



usual degree Europe is unacquainted with it 
notwithstanding that about five thousand vol- 
umes describe the country's principal features 
and that of these books of travel, three hun- 
dred are written in the English language. 
The descendants of the Moors, who, for cen- 
turies, conquered and governed Spain, retain 
their ancestors' spirit of independence, courage, 
glint of refinement, and martial bearing. To 
kindness they are responsive and generally 
willing to give hospitality to strangers. The 
violence of character which they occasionally 
display is an inevitable consequence of the ill- 
usage and persecution inflicted upon them by 
the official classes. To a less extent does the 
degraded morality belong to the Jews in Mo- 
rocco than to the Moors. In Tangier the for- 
mer are influential, thrifty, enterprising, and 
the most enlightened part of the population, 
although in the adjoining provinces many of 
their race are the victims of gross oppression 
due to their alleged usurious habits. The Jews 
are regarded the hope of the Barbary States. 
In the education of the children of Morocco 



4-0 The Empire of the Moors. 

Jews the present schools, few in number, are 
rendering a distinct service to the advance of 
the country, and one of the chief blessings 
which Christian nations could bestow on a 
backward and imperfectly civilised, people 
would be, the increase of these helpful institu- 
tions. Of the mineral wealth and fertility of 
the land glowing accounts corroborate each 
other. In 1892 it was stated that maize, after 
paying the high rate of 105 per cent, duty, was 
exported in large quantities. Trade with Great 
Britain was considerable, and growing, and, were 
the Sultan not suspicious of the intrigues of 
foreign powers and his courtiers guilty of hir- 
ing fanatical Mohammedans in order to work 
on the religious fears of their co-religionists 
with the result of almost constant friction and 
ill-feeling, commercial advantages might be 
extended both as regards the development of 
native resources and the importation of manu- 
factured articles. 

Geographically viewed Morocco, " the China 
of the West," occupies the north-western cor- 
ner of the African Continent, bounded on the 



The Empire of the Moors. 41 



north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the east by- 
Algeria and the Sahara, on the south by the 
giant snow-clad ranges of the Atlas Mountains, 
and westwards by the blue waters of the mighty 
Atlantic Ocean. The area, equal in size to five 
times that of England, is about 260,000 square 
miles and, on a part of its coast line, a 1,000 
miles in extent, the trading settlement of Cape 
Juby, Northwest Africa, is the only civilising 
influence. Its population (in the absence of 
official records) is estimated at from 5,000,000 
to 8,000,000, consisting of Jew, Moslem, Negro, 
and European. The fierce semi-independent 
hill tribes governed by their own chiefs pay 
scanty respect to the Sultan whose skill is dis- 
played in keeping them in a state of perpetual 
warfare to avoid revolution at. home. Sultan 
Muley Hassan has a "standing army" number- 
ing 15,000 soldiers. The generalissimo of the 
forces is a Scotchman bearing the title of Kaid 
MacLean, who has the assistance of his brother, 
both of whom were formerly officers in the Brit- 
ish army. A description of the native warriors 
presents some " rather ludicrous " aspects. 



42 The Empire of the Moors. 

" The troops are clad in cast-off British red-coats 
worn not as tunics, for a Moor could never bear 
to be strapped up, but as loose jackets with a 
single button at the throat. When near enough 
you can see the marks of the old regimental 
numbers, or brigade initials, on the shoulder- 
pieces. A tarboosh or peaked head-piece, a 
pair of wide pantaloons of white, or dubious 
coloured cotton cloth, and the orthodox Moor- 
ish slippers, with an obsolete British musket 
and bayonet, completes the warrior's outfit. The 
British bugle-calls sound at morning, noon, and 
night in camp and barracks, and the words of 
command for military movements are given in 
English." A number of the soldiers and a 
great body of attendants join the Court on its 
annual progress through the provinces, an 
event which the natives on the line of route 
have reason to fear and dread. The pastoral 
resources of the people are usually exhausted 
by the demands which the Sultan's escort 
imposes upon these defenceless subjects. More 
terrible are the visits which the troops of 
the Sultan make in order to avenge insurrec- 



The Empire of the Moors. 43 



tions. A large army is ordered into the district 
disaffected and the country for miles round is 
laid waste by fire and, the wretched inhabitants 
slaughtered in considerable numbers. In this 
kind of "justice," much of his Majesty's time 
is said to be occupied. 

Slavery is quite common in Morocco. At 
regular intervals slave caravans arrive from 
Timbuctoo and the Soudan and freely distrib- 
ute their " commerce." Three days a week 
generally in Fez, Morocco City, and other 
places, slave auctions are held in the open 
market regardless of European opinion and con- 
demnation. This degrading traffic is an index 
of the social condition existing in Morocco. In 
the coast towns the British Minister, Sir John 
Drummond Hay, reports that the prohibition 
of the public sale of slaves has lately been in- 
fringed, a backward step greatly to be deplored. 
Mr. Donald MacKenzie returning from his 
travels in Morocco at the beginning of 1892, 
states that slave-dealing there is as active as 
ever. It is carried on more privately in the 
port towns, from fear of attracting the attention 



44 The Empire of the Moors. 

of the Anti-Slavery Society, but, in the interior, 
slaves are exposed in the public markets. A 
little time back the Moorish Kaids gave the 
Sultan and his son a present of 200 male and 
female slaves, to celebrate the event of the mar- 
riage of the heir to the Moorish throne. Girls, 
from to to 13 years of age, fetch about £16 to 
£24. each, and the slave merchants find the fe- 
males more profitable from 10 to 20 years of 
age. Shortly before his death the lamented 
Sir William Kirby Green obtained a verbal 
promise from the Sultan that the open slave 
markets in his dominions should be closed, — an 
agreement, unfortunately, not ratified. By the 
new Minister at Morocco, Sir Charles Euan- 
Smith, active opposition to slave-selling is ex- 
pected. Sir Charles's efforts on behalf of the 
freedom of the slave at Zanzibar are a guarantee 
that in Morocco he will show at the earliest 
opportunity his aversion to the cruel trade and, 
as zealously work for its stoppage. 

On the unreclaimed field of Morocco the 
North Africa Mission and the South Morocco 
Mission, — the principal societies with opera- 



The Empire of the Moors. 45 

tions, — are doing effective service. The former 
has twenty ladies and seven gentlemen en- 
gaged in evangelistic and similar labours at 
Tangier, Tetuan, Fez, and Casa Blanca, chiefly 
in the northern provinces. Since the opening 
of this mission in 1884 suitable premises have 
been erected and increasing influence gained 
over the Moslem, Jewish, Negro, and European 
populations. 

The city of Tangier, on the north-western 
coast of Morocco, is the headquarters of the 
North Africa Mission and, the popular seaport 
of the missionaries. At Hope House on the city's 
outskirts the missionaries reside until they are 
accustomed to the climate and make acquaint- 
ance with Arabic. From the rocky coast 
which blooms with scarlet geraniums, yellow 
cistus, and many lovely flowers, outward and 
homeward bound steamers via the Straits of 
Gibraltar can easily be seen. The Tulloch 
Memorial Hospital at Tangier, built in mem- 
ory of Miss Tulloch, a beloved labourer, and 
standing on the spot where she " fell asleep," 
is an invaluable institution, over which Dr. T. 



46 The Empire of the Moors. 

G. Churcher exercises a capable medical and 
spiritual superintendence. Patients of every 
race and colour throng the waiting-rooms from 
districts where small-pox makes its ravages on 
Arab children, elephantiasis on adults, and, 
leprosy, amid Negro communities. In one of 
his vivid portraitures the doctor refers to a 
poor, sick slave from Mequinez, Central Mo- 
rocco, whose face was radiant with joy at the 
news that the very Son of God died to save 
even him. Of the missionaries' highest re- 
sponsibility, writes Dr. Churcher, " All our 
practical work is as nothing, and less than 
nothing, as compared with the value of one 
soul." The staff in Tangier includes fourteen 
missionaries, of which Mr. H. N. Patrick, a 
Spaniard, is ardently spreading the seed of the 
kingdom among the 4,000 Spanish in the 
city. Strange receptions are given to the lady 
missionaries. Upon a few of them visiting 
the market-place of Soke Hermees, in the vi- 
cinity of Tangier, every eye was fixed on them, 
followed with the cry, " The Nazarenes are 
here, the Nazarenes have come." Elsewhere 



The Empire of the Moors. 47 

the missionaries have been styled the " Naza- 
ras " and " Kafirs,"— meaning, Infidels. Tetu- 
an, lying on the northern skirt of Morocco, is 
a centre of trade and political influence. 
Nestling between two ranges of mountains 
overlooking the Mediterranean, the city has 
been likened in the sunshine to a " huge pearl 
in verdant setting." Although the population 
of 30,000, comprising Moslems and Jews and a 
sprinkling of Spaniards, has many of the lead- 
ing Morocco families, its filth and crumbling 
ruins are typical of the polluted moral atmos- 
phere. The city's charming natural scenery 
is shadowed by Mohammedan darkness, for 
the penetration of which serene faith has been 
required. As the terminus of a network of 
routes from the interior, Tetuan is an excel- 
lent base for missionary propagation. It forms 
the gateway of the Riff country which extends 
to Algeria. The Riff tribes, not unlike the Al- 
gerian Kabyles, are Berbers, estimated to be 
200,000 in number, who show indifferent regard 
for the Sultan's edicts. 

Fez, the Moorish capital, 130 miles from 



48 The Empire of the Moors, 

Tangier, has 150,000 inhabitants. When Miss 
Herdman, its first lady missionary, was ap- 
proaching it by the Sebou River, a determined 
Arab female seized her by the throat with one 
hand, and, drawing the other across it in imita- 
tion of cutting it, savagely cried out, " That is 
what we ought to do with you." In Fez, after 
seven years' toil, Miss Herdman remains, a 
warmly esteemed messenger of peace. Of 
picturesque situation rising from a circular 
depression, Fez is surrounded by snow- 
crowned summits of the higher Atlas range. 
The under slopes of these are clothed with 
orange and lemon gardens, red-leaved pome- 
granates, extensive olive plantations, and pe- 
rennial, green shrubbery. Amid patches of 
golden wheat and barley, the brilliant poppies, 
marigolds, and groups of tinted flowers, make 
bright scenes. For centuries the Mogreb from 
the elegant tower of the historic Muley Idrees 
mosque has daily sounded, and, to it, the muez- 
zins on distant minarets have as faithfully an- 
swered. In the assault on this stronghold of 
the False Prophet, Christ's angels of mercy have 



The Empire of the Moors. 49 



hazarded their lives, and, in the gorgeous sun- 
sets, have climbed the flat roofs of the houses 
to the 'alliyahs, to sing the melodies of Zion, 
or read the " Wordless Book," in the hearing of 
richly attired Moorish ladies and timid negress 
slaves. Not the least triumph of the North 
Africa Mission is the willingness of the Arabs 
to allow their wives and daughters to visit, un- 
escorted, the mission gatherings. The medical 
mission at Fez is an incessantly besieged ref- 
uge in which suffering humanity is relieved. 
Women from towns and far-away villages as- 
semble at the teachers' doors, and even slaves 
listen to the truth which maketh free indeed. 
One of the visitors two years ago was a 
black slave who, accompanying her mistress, 
said with glee, " I have brought her to hear 
about SidnaAissa," — the name by which Christ 
is known. The centre of avast outlying popu- 
lation, Fez has a few dauntless pioneers and 
witnesses within its gates. 

Since 1888 the southerly parts of Morocco 
have had the unswerving devotion of the mis- 
sionaries belonging to the South Morocco Mis- 



50 The Empire cf the Moors. 

sion. Visiting the land in search of health, Mr. 
John Anderson, of Ardrossan, was appalled at 
thedark-souled condition of the people and, on 
his return to Scotland, founded and, has sub- 
sequently guided, the mission, which is a 
growingly powerful agency. With upwards of 
twenty missionaries the mission is represented 
at Rabat, Mazagan, Mogador, and Morocco City. 
Unconnected with any branch of the Christian 
Church the missionaries of this organization 
seek to spread the kingdom of God in a plain 
and unfettered manner, in harmony with Gos- 
pel teaching. The poor are visited, the young 
instructed, the sick healed, and the Words of 
Christ everywhere spoken in " a land of dark- 
ness, as darkness itself." 

In South Morocco the state of agriculture, 
communication, sanitary matters, and degrada- 
tion, can hardly be conceived. Agricultural 
operations remain in a crude and childish stage. 
Ploughing is carried out under amusing con- 
ditions. It is a common occurrence to see 
yoked together in pairs to the plough, " a pair 
of bulls, a bull and a cow, a bull and a donkey, 



M 



The Empire of the Moors, 



5i 



a horse and a camel, and, a camel and a cow." 
When the furrows are made, or scratched, the 
animals stand at the ends of the plots till the 
Morocco peasant sows his ridges. In the far 
south of Morocco the Atlas Mountains supply- 
rushing streams which are utilised for irrigation 
by means of the artificial water courses. Where 
the inhabitants have the skill and resources to 
make these deep channels, admirable crops are 
raised, once or twice annually, and the fertility 
of the soil increased. Fair landscapes appear 
on the horizon, rich in olive trees and adorned 
with that crown of Oriental vegetation — the 
picturesque date palm, welcomely availed of 
by travellers for shade in the neighbourhood of 
wells and flowing rivulets. Means of transit 
are of a primitive type, accomplished by mules. 
These animals and their masters are equally 
expert in protracting the time of a journey. 

Mogador, on the coast, 125 miles from Mo- 
rocco, is peopled chiefly by the Moors and Jews. 
The Mellah, the quarter in which Jews are 
packed, is the abode of foul smells, raging 
fevers, and loathsome sights, principally conse- 



5 2 The Empire of the Moors. 

quent upon the absence of drainage. Christian 
work in Mogador among the Jews is as burden- 
some as it is perilous. Much preferable is the 
labour of Moorish evangelisation, this race be- 
ing more cleanly in habit and less crowded to- 
gether than their degraded neighbours. Travel- 
ling from Mogador to Morocco, a journey which 
occupies five days on muleback, the country on 
approaching Morocco presents lovely views. 
A missionary traveller writes : " Passing over a 
fine stretch of land thickly studded with date 
palms, many of them laden with golden fruit, 
the city came in sight. Its white-washed walls 
and battlemented houses, and its many mina- 
rets, some of them very high, gleamed in the 
bright sunlight, while beyond rose the Atlas 
Mountains in rugged grandeur reflecting the 
sunshine in many brilliant hues from their 
snow-capped peaks and lofty slopes. The 
scene was one of surpassing loveliness, but its 
beauty only served to heighten the effect of 
the startling contrast within the walls of the 
city. The superabounding filth, the unwhole- 
some effluvia, the perpetual discomfort, make 



The Empire of the Moors. 53 



it a most undesirable residence; while the in- 
tense and, to the European, almost unbearable 
stifling heat of summer, will prove no ordinary 
strain to physical endurance — and health." Mr. 
Joseph Thomson says that one-half of the 
population is usually in prison, — a revelation 
which has a pitiful climax in the spiritual blind- 
ness of the people where Moslem fanaticism 
flaunts itself and, on every hand, moral pollu- 
tion obtains. 

The subjects of the Empire of Morocco are 
proud, superstitious, bigoted, easily lending 
themselves to hatred and strife. Tens of 
thousands of the inhabitants in the wildest dis- 
tricts believe in the return of Mahomet's sway, 
and confidently await the hour of a mighty ris- 
ing for the re-establishment of his fallen sceptre. 
In readiness they hold themselves for the blast 
of the trumpet calling them to a Holy War 
when, marshalled by the Sultan, they anticipate 
that a crushing blow will be delivered to the 
infidel world. Animated by this vision the 
natives inscribe on the guns, which they always 
carry, " Cineeat el jehad, in sha Allah," signi- 



54 The Empire of the Moors. 

fying, " For the purpose of the Holy War, if 
God will." 

As valiantly the enthusiastic advocates of 
the Gospel challenge these errors and assail the 
frowning ramparts of Islam's power. Undis- 
mayed by millions of opposing Mohammedans 
they are assured of the presence of the Most 
High who prepares His own royal way, and 
crowns with praise and triumph the footsteps of 
His messengers. 



LIFE PICTURES FROM NORTH 
AFRICAN LANDS. 



(55) 



III. 



LIFE PICTURES FROM NORTH AFRI- 
CAN LANDS. 



The Arabs of North Africa cling to the style 
of dress and adopt the modes of etiquette by 
which their ancestors were known in bygone 
centuries. In the homestead the Arab wears 
his turbaned head-dress. Its removal there 
would be regarded a gravely discourteous 
act. He is accustomed to clothe himself dur- 
ing the winter months in a thick woollen cloak 
of soft drab usually some fifteen feet long, 
which almost completely swathes his hardy 
limbs. With a portion of the shawl he makes 
his turban and, another length he ties up to 
serve as a purse. A smartly contrived red 
leather pocket hangs at the side suspended by 
shoulder-straps in addition to a broad, richly- 
dyed, cloth girdle round the waist, forming a 
great support in the trying changes of heat and 

(57) 



58 North African Lands. 

cold, peculiar to the African climate. The 
yellowish-brown sandals worn in travelling over 
thorny or stony ground are generally ex- 
changed on approaching a dwelling, for a pair 
of shoes, with the heels turned in, which make 
it easier to remove them on entering a tent or 
room. In this artistic costume the Arab has 
a picturesqueness of figure which breathes of 
the " billowy," sandy desert. 

For the exquisite growths of nature the 
Arabs, men and women alike, have scanty 
regard. The brightest-hued flowers are care- 
lessly passed. About the doorways of " gour- 
bis," or, on the roofs of better-class dwellings, 
mint for tea, oranges for eating, and a little 
coriander and parsley, with which to flavour 
dishes of soup, are cultivated, and this is their 
ideal of a garden. A missionary correspondent 
thus sketches a winter garden at Fez, in De- 
cember : " We were in a beautiful garden full 
of orange, lemon, and other fruit trees, with 
rose and white jasmine bushes in bloom. The 
oranges are still sour, but the trees, full of yel- 
low fruit with their dark glossy leaves, are 



North African Lands. 59 

always a pleasing picture. The Moorish idea 
of a garden is produce. The flowers are only 
allowed odd corners where there is no room for 
a tree, or close to the narrow paths of beaten 
earth. Jasmine and roses pulled off without 
stems are saleable, the jasmine to make 
wreaths for the ladies' heads, the roses for 
rosewater. The blossom of the bitter orange 
is sold in large quantities in the spring for dis- 
tillation." In the spring-time it is quite a 
pleasant novelty to meet an Arab girl who has 
a sprig of jasmine or a violet in her hair. If a 
flower is to interest them it must have the es- 
sential quality of sweetness; the cultivation of 
anything just to admire, is entirely beyond 
their idea. And so it has been noticed that 
when Europeans introduce flowers for delight 
only, the Arabs are always surprised and re- 
quire training in order to appreciate the charms 
of floral beauty. In this respect they offer a 
distinct contrast to their not far off Andalusian 
neighbours in such a city as Seville. Of the 
women employed there in one of the tobacco 
factories a visitor recently made this observa- 



6o North African Lands. 

tion : " One womanly trait was almost uni- 
versal, the love of flowers. The ugliest slat- 
tern, equally with the comparatively neat wo- 
man, had a flower or two in her hair, on her 
bosom, or in a jug beside ner table. It was a 
little bit of pure nature in a very dark and de- 
pressing human dungeon." 

In all the North African regions women have 
a thankless life. They are generally penned 
up in what may be termed prison houses or 
made to labour in the most degrading fashion. 
From very early childhood hundreds of women, 
for instance, in Tunisian villages, never leave 
their cheerless, shabby homes, not even to go 
to a public bath, which a few of their more 
favoured sex can enjoy. Necessarily these 
poor creatures are of a sad and forlorn type, 
and so enslaved to traditions that upon a Eu- 
ropean entering their domicile they promptly 
close the door behind him to avoid the risk of 
a man happening to pass at the time, an occur- 
rence which is supposed to bring disgrace on 
the females within. A lady missionary in 
Tunis touchingly depicts the condition of Arab 



North African Lands. 61 

females : " Only a woman ! a poor, worn-out, 
broken-hearted woman — old before her time — in 
the eyes of her Mohammedan husband, a slave, 
married to be the mother of his children, a part 
of his possessions, to be cast off at his pleasure, 
to be shut up from year's end to year's end 
with very little change to break the dull mo- 
notony of her life : only a household drudge ! 
. . . . Do you want to know the truth of this? 
There are countries, not a week's journey from 
England, where our sisters are treated like 
beasts rather than women — left without educa- 
tion, shut in, married one day, divorced the 
next ; living loveless lives, without any present 
Saviour, only a dim, false hope in the future, 
but oh ! so willing to learn and listen, if only 
they are reached in time." 

Among Algerian tribes women are forced to 
do the hardest kinds of labour outside the 
tents. They gather and carry piles of wood 
long distances, draw the water for the house- 
hold, make the rude pottery, take charge of 
the flocks, and regularly milk the cows and 
goats. These burden-bearers weave the men's 



62 North African Lands, 

haiks, and, with deft hands work the mats and 
baskets which are offered for sale. The poorer 
classes are seldom clean in person. Those who 
have lost sons or male relations in war must 
not wash or change their garment, made up 
of several yards of calico or muslin fastened 
with wooden pins. A missionary trying to 
persuade a young woman to wash her baby and 
his garment, as it was nothing but dirt that was 
killing the child, received the reply, " Has 
there not died to us enough of our men in the 
war that I should let him die also?" Their 
houses are barely worthy the name, so meanly 
are they furnished and lacking in cleanliness. 

From a sense of fear the Arabs, as a rule, in 
every part of North Africa, sleep together, and 
alongside them may be, a camel, mule, cow and 
calf, goat, pig, or a half-starved dog or cat. In 
the remote, less civilised districts of Southern 
Algeria, the women put off the face veil, a por- 
tion of attire which among women of beauty 
and those of the upper classes in the northerly 
towns is rigidly worn, save over a part of the 
left eye. The Kabyle women, whose race in 



North African Lands. 



63 



thousands occupy a large division of Northern 
Algeria, are more kindly treated than any other 
section of females in North Africa. Unlike 
the nomadic Arabs, the Kabyles are settled, 
home-loving tribes of people. In spite of their 
darkened lives their taste and orderliness are 
noticed in the well-tilled farms and fruitful 
market gardens, nor are the women veiled after 
the custom of their Arab neighbours. One of 
the interesting adornments of a woman in 
Kabylia is a brooch attached to her forehead, 
which denotes that she has had the distinction 
of bearing a son, and as frequently as the hon- 
our is repeated, she adds to the number of her 
ornaments with true native grace and dignity. 

Curiosity and suspicion are universal traits. 
When a stranger is invited into an Arab tent, 
and has put off his shoes before stepping on 
the mat, the eagerness to learn everything 
about him is astonishing. Of this character- 
istic, laughable stories are told by the ladies of 
the North Africa Mission. In certain parts 
where a foreign lady may not have previously 
travelled, her dress is an object of minute and 



64 North African Lands. 

incessant examination. The natives are amazed 
at the quantity of flannel worn by Europeans. 
Hats, too, are respectfully inspected and the 
under-garments scrutinized by the native wo- 
men, who wear little beside two or three cot- 
ton folds. When this inspection is finished, 
questioning begins regarding the life-history of 
the guest. As with Easterns of other lands, the 
Arabs are painfully suspicious, a feature of a 
less pleasing character. Deceiving and de- 
ceived, they are loth to commit themselves to 
a fresh face, and much effort is required to per- 
suade them of genuine friendliness. When 
their confidence is gained the kindness they 
show in the north country provinces is remark- 
able. A friend of the writer's recently travel- 
led on foot from Tunis to Gabes, a fortnight's 
journey, upwards of two hundred miles, with- 
out the slightest charge for hospitality, except 
on one occasion. On money being offered to 
the Bedouin Arabs for shelter and refresh- 
ments they often replied in their own tongue : 
" The Lord has given me plenty, I don't want 
your money." 



North African Lands. 65 

Pathetic to the last degree is the death scene 
on many a stern landscape among the Bedouin 
children of the desert. When the dread hour 
approaches the suffering member usually rests 
on a mattress in the middle of the floor. From 
far and near friends and relatives slide in 
to watch, until the apartment is unbearably 
crowded. The appearance of these death- 
watchers is very strange and uncivilised. 
Their hair jet black, their faces painted, and, 
their clothing, made up of loose, dark blue 
garments, is thrown up on the shoulder or 
across the chest, fastened by a huge pin 
adorned with a large silver ring'. There they 
remain hour after hour and only turn away 
when life has ceased to beat. In their customs 
the Bedouins differ little from the stationary 
Arabs : they are Mohammedans, densely igno- 
rant, superstitious in the extreme, yet more 
accessible by Europeans. 

That useful adjunct of civilised lands, the 
post-carrier, has a rough kind of existence in 
North Africa. The only " royal mail " in Mo- 
rocco is represented by a class of poor, lean 



66 North African Lands. 

Arabs, bearing letters in leathern bags slung 
about their necks. A traveller pourtrays the 
type of present-day Moorish post-runners : 
" They eat nothing on their journey but a 
little bread and a few figs ; they stop only at 
night for a few hours to sleep, with a cord tied 
to the foot, to which they set fire before going 
to sleep, and which wakens them within a cer- 
tain time ; they travel whole days without see- 
ing a tree or a drop of water ; they cross forests 
infested with wild boar, climb mountains in- 
accessible to mules, swim rivers, sometimes 
walk, sometimes run, sometimes roll down de- 
clivities, or climb ascents on feet and hands, 
under the August sun, under the drenching 
autumn rains, under the burning desert wind, 
taking four days from Fez to Tangier, a week 
from Tangier to Morocco, from one extremity 
of the empire to the other, alone, barefooted, 
half-naked ; and when they do reach their 
journey's end, they go back! And this they 
do for a few francs." Than the lives of these 
couriers nothing more wretched can be im- 
agined. 



A T orth African Lands. 6j 

At the elementary steps towards civilisation 
the Arabs and Bedouins look on very stub- 
bornly in the myriad villages of the French 
Regency in Tunis. Near to the hamlet dwell- 
ings of the natives stagnant water, heaps of 
filthy mire, and the bodies of decayed animals 
foul the atmosphere and, as of yore, spread 
horrible diseases. When the inhabitants are 
urged to remove these vile sources of pestilence 
opposite their hovels, in which the sick are 
lying, they invariably answer : " We have always 
been accustomed to leave them unburied." 
The cramped, irregular, misnamed streets are 
used for cooking, trading, shambles, and, not 
infrequently, to suit the native humour of 
the population, grotesque theatrical displays. 
Morality in such quarters is rarely found. Un- 
truthfulness, dishonesty, and treachery prevail, 
nor have the people much affection for each 
other. 

Tunis, the capital of the province, is a city 
of faded glory, vice, and degradation, of some 
140,000 inhabitants. These are made up of 
30,000 Jews, 20,000 to 30,000 Italians, French, 



68 North African Lands. 

Arabs, Berbers, and Maltese. The city, five 
miles in circumference, has an outer wall of 
nine gates, enclosing an inner one, which has 
seven smaller entrances. Famed for its mag- 
nificent mosque and teeming with mosques of 
miniature size, Tunis was built in an age when 
the mighty Ottoman empire stood in the zenith 
of its power and renown. The Oriental char- 
acter of the streets make a kaleidoscopic pano- 
rama, garnished with bazaars in the arched, 
fretted arcades, and trodden by the world's 
nationalities, through which strings of soft- 
footed camels, caparisoned mules, and donkeys 
jostle and struggle for passage. Arab women 
of rank travel secluded in closed carriages 
accompanied by negresses of the better type 
veiled or masked in black, with the exception 
of a narrow slit through which they gaze on 
the busy scene. The city is dead to spiritual 
life and its drunkenness is appalling. One mis- 
sionary says : " The greatest hindrance to mis- 
sionary progress here is alcohol. Friends who 
think that the Mohammedans are sober people 
ought to come and spend a week with us that 



North African Lands. 69 

they might see the contrary." Another writes: 
''The longer I live in Tunis the more I see and 
hear of its awful wickedness." In this province, 
one of the darkest throughout North Africa, 
thousands upon thousands of blinded Moslems 
piously observe the five leading injunctions of 
the Koran — belief in God, and Mohammed (His 
chief prophet), almsgiving, pilgrimage to Mecca, 
fasting in the month of Ramadan, and prayer. 
It is interesting to hear a Mohammedan add, 
" if God will," whenever he is about to make a 
journey, and as painful, his exclamation, " God 
is great," in all kinds of stations and circum- 
stances where, commonly, every vestige of 
morality is denied. In the haunts and homes 
of these people, heroines of the faith, filled with 
the spirit of the Gospel, are telling of One 
mighty to help and save. 

Slavery is a national abomination and in- 
iquity. Into Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, and Mo- 
rocco, gangs of slaves are brought continually 
in vast numbers from the interior for sale. 
Were the inhuman cruelties inflicted on the 
hapless beings adequately known, the removal 



yo North African Lands. 

of the villainy of slave-trading in these parts 
would not long be postponed. A sense of guilt is 
shown by the traders in the western provinces 
of Morocco. At Fez, the Moorish capital, the 
slave market is hypocritically styled, " El Soke 
Baraka," the " Market of Blessing," and many 
of the slaves bought there receive affectionate 
names by which slave dealers and owners try 
to deaden a reproaching conscience. In Mo- 
rocco the slaves have one right only. If a 
master very brutally outrages his " chattel," 
the victim may seek redress from a local judge 
who can command the proprietor to sell his 
slave. Seldom is the privilege exercised by 
the captive, lest the second owner should prove 
worse than his predecessor. 

Although brilliant results have not hitherto 
attended the North Africa Mission, its mission- 
aries have excelled in planting Gospel seeds in 
Islamite furrows, in acts of Christ-like mercy, 
and, in beginning the foundation of the sover- 
eign faith. The mission,, inaugurated eleven 
years ago, — previous to which there was no 
evangelistic organisation occupied in the great 



North African Lands. 



7* 



North African provinces, — has enrolled seventy- 
workers, opened six Medical Missions, and in- 
itiated a group of agencies by which to reclaim 
some of the fourteen million souls populating 
the lands which skirt the curving northern 
shores of the Mediterranean Sea. 



EVANGELISATION IN EGYPT AND 
THE NILE VALLEY. 



(73) 



IV. 

EVANGELISATION IN EGYPT AND 
THE NILE VALLEY. 

Brightening signs mark the progress of 
education, agriculture, and civilisation in Low- 
er and Upper Egypt, — blessings of a social and 
material character which have largely flowed 
from the British occupation which began about 
seven years ago. In the work of pacific revo- 
lutionising Sir Evelyn Baring and his distin- 
guished staff have done more in a very brief 
period than Egypt's rulers did in long centu- 
ries to establish justice, to raise the " fellaheen " 
from hereditary bondage, and to develop the 
untilled resources of a land 

" Where all things always seem'd the same." 

The regime of Turkey over Egypt, character- 
ised too frequently by oppression and ruinous 

taxation, has been firmly supplanted by a rule 

i 
instinct with the spirit of humanity and righte- 

(75) 



j6 Egypt an d the Nile Valley. 

ousness. Every well-wisher of this deeply in- 
teresting country will desire to see her pros- 
perity continued under the sceptre of the new 
sovereign, the young Khedive, Abbas Pasha. 

The growth recently, almost phenomenal, of 
the public school system, has signal value. It 
is scarcely credible that the earlier unwilling- 
ness of the natives to avail themselves of this 
institution is already disappearing. An illus- 
tration of this is shown in the return of 1887, 
when there were only 12 Government schools 
with 1,919 pupils, in contrast to the number of 
schools in 1890, — as far south as Assouan, — 
counted at 47, with an attendance of 7,307, and 
a corresponding increase in paying, as distinct 
from aided, scholars. The voluntary principle 
of the education offered makes the improve- 
ment more notable. 

Passing to the sphere of evangelisation and 
missionary activity the palm of honour is car- 
ried off easily by the United States. The work 
of the American Presbyterians inaugurated 
seven and thirty years since has been equally 
remarkable in the energy displayed and the 



Egypt and the Nile Valley. 7 7 

spiritual harvest obtained. Far up the Nile 

banks, where 

" Tall Orient shrubs, and obelisks 
Graven with emblems of the time," 

abound, they have laboured with unwearied 
ardour. Testimonies have often been given 
by European tourists of the religious enthusi- 
asm of American missionaries which may 
cause English Christians to blush, particularly 
so, on recalling what British statesmanship has 
achieved for the material and national welfare 
of modern Egypt. 

In Cairo — a base of Christian aggression — 
the celebrated Mohammedan University of El 
Azar is situated, to which upwards of 10,000 
Moslem students resort from north and east Af- 
rica, Turkey, Arabia, Persia, and India, for the 
exclusive study of the Koran and its literature. 
Some of these return to the empires of the 
East to propagate Moslem doctrines, and oth- 
ers, in considerable numbers, attach themselves 
to Mohammedan leaders in the Dark Continent 
as crusading preachers and conquerors, thus 
swelling the rising tide of Mohammedanism 



7 8 Egypt and the Nile Valley. 

setting in from North African lands. As far 
back as i860, in that most Oriental-looking of 
Eastern cities — Cairo, Miss Mary Whately, 
whose death in March, 1890, was widely la- 
mented, opened her British school on Christian 
principles, and, later, another valuable auxil- 
iary, — the Medical Mission. With rare self- 
sacrifice this benevolent lady, one of the 
daughters of Archbishop Whately, gave, in 
furtherance of these objects, her entire strength 
and private means. By the Khedivial Govern- 
ment and by every class of residents and offi- 
cers in the city, these institutions were appre- 
ciated. An evidence of the usefulness of the 
Medical Mission is the report that weekly, 
throughout the year, more than 300 patients 
had relief. The work of the late Miss M. L. 
Whately hasbeen continued by Mrs. Shakoor and 
the Hon. Diana Vernon, — but in future a union 
with the Church Missionary Society is probable. 
Of kindred aim in Cairo is the home for freed wom- 
en slaves which was instituted several years ago 
by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Soci- 
ety. Dusky strangers from southern climes are 



Egypt and the A T zle Valley. 79 

trained within the home and remain there un- 
til they are qualified to enter domestic service 
or are married. A similar home has recently 
been organised in the city of Tripoli, for refu- 
gee slave women, by Ahmed Ressim Pasha, the 
enlightened Governor-General of the province 
of Tripoli, — a harbinger, it may be hoped, of 
stronger opposition to the slave trade in the 
surrounding countries. 

The missionary occupation of Lower Egypt, 
or the Delta, is painfully insufficient for the 
needs of a population approaching six millions 
of souls. Of the 400,000 inhabitants in Cairo 
there are possibly 4,000 regular hearers of the 
Gospel. The workers in 1891 comprised three 
missionaries and four ladies belonging to the 
English Church Missionary Society, whose la- 
bours in household visitation, in Christian 
schools, and in the Medical Mission, have been 
growingly fruitful. The literary and medical 
departments have respectively had the able 
superintendence of Drs. Klein and Harpur, 
who have made a vigorous appeal to the direct- 
ors in England for sixteen additional seed- 



80 Egypt and the Nile Valley. 

sowers to hasten Egypt's ingathering. In the 
same city the United Presbyterian Church of 
North America has extensive schools and large 
congregations, and, over the Delta, in five of 
the principal towns and about a score of the 
villages, various schools and small companies 
of worshippers. On this wide field the Amer- 
ican Mission force is limited to the efforts of 
two missionaries and four ladies, reckoning 
missionaries' wives, and its staff of devoted na- 
tive helpers. The seaport of Alexandria, with 
a population of 230,000 souls, has one mission- 
ary, three lady visitors to the harems, a Church 
of Scotland missionary responsible for an Arab 
children's primary school, two lady missiona- 
ries engaged in general services under General 
Haisdi's direction, Miss Robinson's much es- 
teemed Sailors' and Soldiers' Institute, and, Mr. 
Rudolph's visits to the Jews. Other spiritual 
agencies employed on the Delta include a 
Dutch missionary at Calioub, near Cairo, an 
occasional colporteur at Damietta, evangelists 
for the Europeans and sailors at Port Said, and 
the indefatigable witness-bearers of the English 



Egypt and the Nile Valley. 81 

and American Bible Societies who cannot ex- 
pect very bright results in a land where, it is 
said, only four or five per cent, can read. 

• Little has the extreme spiritual darkness of 
the Delta or, the vastness of its unoccupied 
territory, been realised. Excluding Cairo and 
Alexandria and their great populations and a 
number of smaller towns whose inhabitants 
vary from 5,000 to 40,000 each, there are thou- 
sands of mud-built villages on the brown- 
mounds — the remains of villages of a bygone 
epoch, in which millions of souls live wholly 
destitute of the light of the Gospel. With 
the advancing strides of civilisation the level 
stretches of the Delta, the threading canals, 
the broad patches of vivid green large-leafed 
clover (the native berseem), may by and by 
become the centres of evangelical faith. On 
that soil, fertile as historical, over which fifty 
dynasties and ten nationalities have ruled nearly 
seven thousand years, where generations of na- 
tive races have in succession been crushed be- 
neath the heel of Assyrian, Persian, Roman, 
Saracen, and Turkish satraps and despots, the 



82 Egypt and the Nile Valley. 

prophet's vision must be fulfilled: "And the 
Lord shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyp- 
tians shall know the Lord in that day." 

To the shadow which falls on the Delta the 
brightness of the day-spring which has visited 
the Nile Valley, south of Cairo, presents a 
cheering contrast. For a distance of 400 miles 
up the Nile which represents Egypt proper, 
since the Equatorial Regions and other prov- 
inces stretching from Arabia Petrsea and Syria 
to the western limits of Darfur in Central Af- 
rica, were lost during the late Khedive's reign, 
the United Presbyterians of North America 
have honoured themselves in organising the 
most notable and successful mission on Egyp- 
tian territory in modern times. Along this com- 
paratively narrow strip of alluvial soil, hemmed 
in by hills through which the Nile flows, fringed 
with green banks and the stately, graceful 
palms, lives a population of about 1,000,000 
people, among whom the Americans have toiled 
with surprising devotion. On this riverine 
tract, covering districts as far apart as Mansoora 
and Luxor, El Feshn and Keneh, Asyoot and 



Egypt and the Nile Valley. &$ 

Assouan, they have ninety stations with 
schools attached, or congregations and schools 
united, taught by native pastors and teachers. 
As proof of the vitality of the work is the state- 
ment that the eighty and more schools are en- 
tirely supported by the willing offerings of the 
native congregations. With the thirty-five 
congregations and schools in Cairo, its envi- 
rons, and the Delta, the total membership of 
the native evangelical churches numbers 3,200, 
making in 1890 a gain of seventeen and one- 
half per cent. Three years ago 25,944 religious 
meetings were held ; the average Sunday morn- 
ing attendance at worship reached 4,747, and 
the Sunday-schools, 4,338. For the privileges 
of public worship and in aid of the Zenana 
mission, the natives are liberal contributors. 
In the evangelistic department the native 
workers consist of pastors, licentiates, Bible- 
readers, theological students, Zenana visitors 
upwards of sixty in number, together with 250 
Sunday-school teachers; and, by means of 15 
colporteurs, who travel annually hundreds of 
miles, and numerous book depots, 33,609 pub- 



84 Egypt an d th e Nile Valley. 

lications of an educational and religious class 
were sold. The section devoted to education 
is represented by 5,600 pupils in the Mission 
common schools, a training college and theo- 
logical seminary for pastors and teachers, and 
training schools for girls which furnish teach- 
ers and Zenana workers. By the attendance 
of something like 1,000 Moslem boys and girls 
at the schools, the influence of the Mission is 
abundantly testified, and, as remarkably, by 
the baptism of sixty young men and women, 
formerly Mohammedans, into the Christian 
faith. From every social rank, grade, and tribe 
come the scholars to receive the advantages of 
an education imparted in an ennobling, Chris- 
tian spirit. The girls are qualified for the do- 
mestic circles as maids or, for the position of 
wives in the homes ; and the boys excel as 
skilled artisans, if not selected for Government 
offices. To promote the agencies of this sin- 
gularly noble undertaking, the Nile Mission 
boat, the Ibis, constantly makes voyages up 
and down the river, admirable buildings are 
being erected, and, an aggregate staff of 300 



Egypt and the Nile Valley. 85 

efficient co-labourers, native and foreign, en- 
gaged. 

Mainly has the plough of the American 
missionaries been turned upon the Coptic 
dwellers in the Nile Valley, who form with the 
Mohammedans a large proportion of the popu- 
lation. On this fallow ground they have toiled 
and won bright triumphs. In a twofold sphere 
success has been reaped. Zealous converts 
have been made and, by thousands the young 
people have flocked into the schools. A wave 
of revival has reached the Coptic Church, — an 
ancient branch of Christendom and, not im- 
probably, its restoration may be graciously 
achieved by men and women taught in the 
churches of the American Mission. Upon the 
Mohammedans the energy of the missionaries 
has made an impression. Less bigoted than 
their co-religionists westwards, they have been 
affected by contact with Europeans and up- 
heavals in the history of the Soudan, and are, 
to-day, more susceptible to the message of 
Christ. The lines of the poet : 



86 Egypt and the Nile Valley. 

" Neither hide the ray 
From those, not blind, who wait for day," 

have distinct application to these followers of 
the False Prophet, from whose midst a harvest 
of souls may yet be gathered. In Egypt, " the 
Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies," 
across whose sandy deserts and gigantic ruins 
the sun has poured his heat for uncounted 
ages, the heralds of the Cross are setting be- 
fore the eyes of the native Mohammedans, at 
the close of the nineteenth century, the holi- 
ness and grace of Christianity, by which to un- 
bar the hearts of multitudes to the power of 
salvation and the kingdom of God. 

Such divine success may receive impetus 
from high places. In the new Egyptian Min- 
istry of 1891 the two portfolios of the Foreign 
Minister and the Minister of Public Instruction 
were placed in the hands of native Christian 
statesmen. Tigrane Pasha, the holder of the 
first named office, is young, brilliant, and, of in- 
dependent mind, who, in the discharge of two 
previous under-secretaryships, has shown emi- 
nent ability, and gained the reputation of being 



Egypt and the Nile Valley. Sy 

a powerful ally. The second of these appoint- 
ments is held by Yacoub Pasha Artin, who 
signalised his under-secretaryship in the same 
department at an earlier date by founding the 
current system of education and effecting re- 
forms of national importance. No longer will 
it be possible to repeat the indignities to which 
they were subjected on account of their Chris- 
tian profession by Riaz Pasha, a former Presi- 
dent of the Council, inasmuch as each of these 
distinguished servants of State will have the 
confidence, which they enjoyed at the hands of 
the late Khedive, from his successor. 

By these exalted personages it is not un- 
reasonable to hope that Christianity will have 
open countenance ; their Mohammedan col- 
leagues the influence of Christian manhood ; 
the destinies of Egypt the stamp of a genuinely 
humane policy ; and, the Eastern world, the 
rays of an enlightened rule, before which " the 
voice of the oppressor " shall cease and the 
night of darkness forever be chased away. 



UGANDA UNDER CONQUEST, 



(89) 



V. 
UGANDA UNDER CONQUEST. 

WITH a country of exceeding fertility, ca- 
pable of enormous productiveness, and peopled 
by the finest nation in Africa, Uganda, to the 
north-west of Victoria Nyanza, is one of the 
most powerful kingdoms in East Central Africa. 
To reach Uganda from the coast at Zanzibar 
has involved forced and desperate marches at- 
tended by no slight peril. The transport of 
goods, confined to human porterage, and esti- 
mated at an average cost of £200 per ton, from 
the seaboard of the Indian Ocean to the lake 
region, has been unusually trying and burden- 
some. By this primitive mode of carriage the 
journey has required four months for accom- 
plishment. To carry 250 tons a sum of £$o r 
000 must be paid to 1,000 men, slaves as a rule, 
hired out by slave-owners to do the work. 
Pledged to the total suppression of slavery 

(90 



92 Uganda tinder Conquest. 

the British East Africa Company has utilised 
this form of contract to the slave's advantage, 
and upwards of 4,000 slaves have effected their 
emancipation by the proceeds of transit labour. 
Where necessary they have likewise secured 
the protection offered in the freed slave settle- 
ments. On the construction of the projected 
railroad for which a survey is in progress the 
inhuman practice of enslaving captives will 
have received in the sphere of British influence 
its desired overthrow : the rescue of slaves will 
be more frequent, caravan routes severed, and, 
a distinct beginning made towards the exter- 
mination of the life-curse which has lain for 
long ages on the face of the Dark Continent. 
It is calculated that the railway system, extend- 
ing from the sea-coast to the Victoria Nyanza, 
will measure something like 500 miles. In 
leading this admirable enterprise the British 
East Africa Company, — a governing corpora- 
tion engaged in the work of developing and 
opening routes for British trade and the com- 
merce of the world, — will more effectively cover 
a coast line of over 400 miles and, stretching 



Uganda under Conquest. 93 

from 800 to 1,000 miles into the interior. This 
extensive area is amazingly rich in natural re- 
sources and in its normal condition supports 
large herds of cattle, supplies grain in excess 
of the needs of its ordinary population, and, is 
susceptible of bearing an increased variety of 
agricultural produce. In contact with the mill- 
ions of semi-barbarians, civilisation is already 
creating wants, chiefly of textile manufacture, 
which will certainly be multiplied by the intro- 
duction of industries necessitating much inter- 
change of commodities. 

The circle of missionary endeavour has no 
more romantic narrative than that written on 
the field of heathendom in Uganda. Since the 
month of November, 1875, when Mr. Stanley's 
challenge to Christendom appeared in a Lon- 
don newspaper, heroically brave soldiers of the 
Cross have waged battle for its conquest. 
Seven months after the call for missionaries 
had been made the first mission party of the 
English Church Missionary Society had arrived 
at Zanzibar, where preparations were promptly 
ia hand for the march inland. Through what 



94 Uganda under Conquest. 

periods of light and shade their labours have 
passed in Uganda the world has gleaned from 
letters and diaries of tragic interest. The 
promising opening of the mission was darkened 
by the murder of Lieutenant Smith and Mr. 
O'Neill and, two years later, the hostile influ- 
ence of Arab traders and the coming of several 
French Romish priests prejudiced Mtesa, the 
king, against the English missionaries. At 
the close of 1 879 the missionaries were shocked 
at the king's return to heathen customs. The 
following year the reduced band of evangelists 
quietly pursued their task of sowing the Word 
among the native population. By the month 
of March, 1881, the Uganda envoys returned 
from England, the storm-cloud lifted, impetus 
was given to the campaign, and fresh reinforce- 
ments arrived. The first converts, five in 
number, were baptised on the 18th of March, 
1882, the reaping continuing in spite of the 
Monarch's doubtful attitude. In 1884, Mtesa, 
after a reign of twenty-seven years, died, and, 
one evidence of the hold which the mission- 
aries had upon the court and chiefs, was their 



Uganda tender Conquest. 95 

prevention of the barbaric cruelties which had 
been enacted for centuries in connexion with 
a sovereign's funeral obsequies. 

Mwanga's accession to the throne was the 
beginning of a series of events of a chequered 
character. As the murderer of Bishop Hanning- 
ton and the Christian " readers," in 1886, 
Mwanga's name was tarnished with a bloody- 
memory. That calamity stirred Christendom 
throughout its length and breadth and evoked 
profound sympathy with the cause of African 
missions. Dark days of persecution and mas- 
sacre rapidly succeeded one another, the mis- 
sionaries in the meantime, Mackay, notably, 
suffering great hardships. From conscience or 
policy Mwanga, in 1888, looked with favour 
on the Revs. E. C. Gordon and R. H. Walker, 
and every hope was entertained of progress. 
In the same year Mwanga was dethroned by a 
revolution and the sceptre placed in the hands 
of his brother Kiwewa, who was deposed and 
murdered by the Arab party, and another 
brother, named Kilema, invested with kingly 
rank. This puppet of evil masters commenced 



96 Uganda under Conquest. 

his rule by slaughtering all his princely 
brothers and sisters, and, with one exception, 
Mwanga's immediate kindred. The king's 
deeds of blood swiftly recoiled on his own for- 
tunes ! In his banishment the exile Mwanga 
took refuge with the French missionaries at 
the south end of Victoria Nyanza, where he 
eagerly seconded their plans to reinstate him 
in Uganda. His allied fugitives associated 
with the French teachers next attacking Ki- 
lema in two pitched battles, — one at Uddu and 
another across the Katonga, in which they were 
victorious. Mwanga subsequently joined these 
assailants and after alternate defeats and suc- 
cesses regained the throne. It should be 
chronicled to the undying honour of Mr. 
Mackay that although he was pressingly urged 
when exiled at Usambiro to encourage the 
Protestant native converts to unite themselves 
with Kilema's foes, he unhesitatingly opposed 
the stratagem. By the death of Kilema, his 
predecessor reigns without a rival, nor has he 
any successor, save in the person of a little son, 
a few years old. Amid these struggles the 



Uganda under Conquest. 97 

country was in a sorry condition. An explorer 
who travelled through it spoke of the desola- 
tion which starvation and bloodshed had pro- 
duced. This eye-witness questioned whether 
at the head of the kingdom " there ever was a 
man more unfitted to rule a country (than 
Mwanga), as he takes absolutely no interest in 
the welfare of his people, but only thinks of 
his own safety and personal comforts. Banana 
groves and several small coffee plantations were 
choked up with long grass and in a dreadful 
state of neglect. Human remains and broken 
shields were scattered along the path, and 
everything bore signs of the recent troubles." 

To complete the picture of 1890 it will natu- 
rally be assumed that Mwanga was the nominee 
of the Catholic party. At heart he was a ruler 
by expediency who would have crushed both 
Catholics and Protestants if it had been within 
his power, and, on the other hand, the natives of 
Uganda, had they possessed a prince of Mtesa's 
line, would have put forward his claims. The 
design of the French agents to have political 
control in Uganda has created endless bitter- 



98 Uganda under Conquest. 



ness between the Protestant and Catholic 
converts, again inflamed in 1891-2, conse- 
quent upon the representatives of the British 
East Africa Company administering justice 
irrespective of class or tribe. The one bright 
spot in the train of these disasters was the 
treaty which Mwanga made at Mengo, May 16, 
1890, with the signatories, Pere Simeon Lour- 
del (since dead), of the Algerian Missions, and 
Dr. Carl Peters, — that slave dealing and the 
exportation of slaves from territory under his 
jurisdiction, should be forbidden. With Dr. 
Felkin's remarks on the question of the Romish 
invasion in Uganda most readers will be in 
hearty accord. He writes: " One cannot help 
believing that in uncivilised countries, such as 
Uganda, missions of various denominations 
should not encroach one upon the other. 
Probably ecclesiastics may differ on this point ; 
still it can hardly be doubted that had the 
Protestants, who first entered Uganda, been 
permitted to carry on their work without the dis- 
ruption caused by the subsequent introduction 
of an apparently new religion, much would have 



Uganda tinder Conquest. 99 

been different, and the undoubted advantages 
which the Protestants possessed in 1880 might 
have served to prevent the intrigues which led 
to such loss of life." 

In 1890 Bishop Tucker, the third Bishop of 
Equatorial Africa, reached Usambiro after a 
rough journey. Arriving in Uganda he per- 
ceived the jealousy of the French Roman Cath- 
olic missionaries and, the uneasiness of the 
people, lest the Mohammedans should invade 
Mwanga's dominions. With the enthusiasm 
of the Protestant converts he was overjoyed, 
of which he wrote on December 30, 1890: 
" Truly, the half was not told me. Exagger- 
ation about the eagerness of the people here 
to be taught, there has been none. No words 
can describe the emotion which filled my heart 
as on Sunday, the 28th, I stood up to speak 
to fully 1,000 men and women, who crowded 
the church of Buganda. It was a wonderful 
sight ! There, close beside me, was the Kati- 
kiro, the second man in the kingdom. There, 
on every hand, were chiefs of various degrees, 
all Christian men, and all in their demeanour 



ioo Ugaiida under Conquest. 

devout and earnest to a high degree. The re- 
sponses in their heartiness were beyond every- 
thing I have heard even in Africa. There was 
a second service in the afternoon, at which 
there must have been fully 800 present. The 
same earnest attention was apparent and the 
same spirit of devotion. I can never be suf- 
ficiently thankful to God for the glorious priv- 
ilege of being permitted to preach to these 
dear members of Christ's flock." The Bishop 
set apait in January, J 891, six natives as lay 
evangelists, who will be entirely supported by 
the native church. Hopes are cherished that 
shortly they may become candidates for the 
order of the clergy. Unlimited possibilities 
seem to be within the compass of the Chris- 
tians of Uganda. Taught by each other it 
appears that numbers of the converts have 
never had the advantage of a white teacher, 
while, as pleasing, is the desire of native con- 
verts to support the ministry in their midst. 
The Bishop was partly successful in negotiating 
pledges for more amicable relations between 
the two divisions into which the Christians 



Uganda under Conquest. 101 

have ranged themselves. About the middle 
of 1891 Bishop Tucker made a hurried visit to 
England to secure 40 volunteer missionaries, 
and to hold conferences with the committee 
respecting future policy in Uganda. His ad- 
dresses aroused great interest in the United 
Kingdom, followed by promises of large sub- 
scriptions and offers of service. The tidings 
of missionary progress in Uganda were con- 
firmed later by the Rev. E. C. Gordon, on fur- 
lough from Uganda. He spoke of the influ- 
ence which the Protestant chiefs and converts, 
though inferior numerically to the Roman 
Catholics, exerted, by their strong character 
and fidelity. In their wish to learn the truth 
they were most earnest and had built houses 
for the missionaries and a church of consider- 
able size. The results of the work, in every 
way, were marvellous. From the Church Mis- 
sionary Society's directors, Mr. Gordon had a 
hearty greeting. This splendid missionary 
sailed with his uncle, the martyr-bishop Han- 
nington, at whose suggestion Cyril Gordon left 
wife and friends behind in entering on the haz- 



io2 Uganda under Conquest. 

ardous " call " to the Dark Continent. Leaving 
England together in 1882, — the following year, 
Hannington was- driven back by fever, but 
again returned in 1884 to the land he had 
learned to love, as first bishop in Eastern 
Equatorial Africa. At the time of Hanning- 
ton's tragical fate Gordon was spared, and 
through nine long years heroically toiled. One 
may write of him : 

" For where he fixt his heart he set his hand 
To do the thing he will'd, and bore it thro'." 

Upon Gordon's vigorous constitution the cli- 
mate and trials have furrowed deep marks. 
El is testimony shows that Mr. Stanley's trib- 
utes to Alexander Mackay's splendid la- 
bours in Uganda were not exaggerated and, 
worthy of a race some of whom had refused 
for Christ's sake the personal advantage of be- 
ing made chieftains, and, of others, who had 
endured scorching persecution, and had per- 
sisted in cherishing a Christian profession at 
the peril of their lives. 

Zeal in England for the Uganda Mission 



Uganda tinder Conquest. 10? 



j 



was tested and crowned late in 1891. The 
Directors of the British East Africa Company 
finding that their financial outlay in Uganda 
was heavy and without adequate return, had re- 
solved to withdraw, a step which intensified the 
risk of the missionaries and their settlements. 
Captain Lugard, that brave man, whose tact, 
energy, sagacity, and resources had, in 1891, 
saved Uganda from being torn to pieces by 
internecine strife, if not devoured by coast 
Arabs or, the Mahdi's vedettes, was recalled. 
To avert this contingency the Company offered 
to advance a large amount of money if the 
Society's friends would guarantee a similar 
amount. Enough to add, that the supporters 
of the Uganda crusade grandly responded, a 
proof of the enthusiasm which the work in 
prospect and achieved in Uganda, had inspired. 
It would have been pitiable if this most inter- 
esting of the African tribes had been forsaken 
in the hour of trial when so many had attested 
their faith by martyrdom and others were pre- 
pared to endure hardship for the Cross. 

On the eve of departure for Africa in De- 



104 Uganda under Conquest. 

cember, 1891, Bishop Tucker appealed to Chris- 
tian and philanthropic people of the United 
Kingdom to enable the missionaries to place a 
steel steamboat on the Victoria Nyanza, the cost 
of which and her provision for two years would 
amount to ,£25,000. Except the laying of a 
railway no more potent instrument could be 
utilised for the destruction of slavery and the 
slave trade, — the greatest curse which afflicted 
humanity in Central Africa ; than a powerful 
steamer, far superior to the small steel sailing 
vessel en route for the lake. The steamer 
would serve for police purposes, the interests 
of the natives, and, of civilisation generally. In 
particular it would be a grand agent in ex- 
tending to the regions beyond, the priceless 
blessings of Christianity. 

Touchingly the Bishop alluded to a con- 
ference of six men, some five years back, on 
the southern shore of the Victoria Nyanza. 
The topic of these heroes who had consecrated 
their lives to the service of their fellow-crea- 
tures was the need of a steamer for lake navi- 
gation. They unanimously agreed that the 



Uganda wider Conquest. 105 

craft was indispensable if the work was to go 
forward effectively. Three of the six men, 
Henry Perrot Parker, the second bishop of 
Equatorial Africa, who presided over the con- 
ference ; Henry Blackburn, and Alexander 
Mackay, now lie in their graves, less than 100 
yards from the very spot where their confer- 
ence was held. The names of the three sur- 
vivors are Robert H. Walker, Robert P. Ashe, 
and Douglas Hooper. Mackay had himself 
undertaken to build the vessel and, with iron 
will he toiled beneath the fierce rays of an 
African sun for its consummation. The task 
was beyond the strength of this crusader of 
missions, who fell in the forge as nobly as any 
hero-warrior on the battle field. Riveting the 
plates of the boiler he was seized with a chill 
which alas, proved fatal, on the 8th of Febru- 
ary, 1890. 

It cannot be long ere the funds are sub- 
scribed for the realisation of Mackay's sacred 
ambition, " that marvellous dream of the Em- 
press of Uganda, who saw a beautiful boat 
with white wings spread out like a great sea- 



106 Uganda tinder Conquest. 

bird sailing over the waters of the Nyanza 
with a white man seated in the stern looking 
at the land." On the project of such a vessel 
the missionary's heart was set and, for it he 
gave up his life. Than the erection and dis- 
patch of this craft no grander memorial could 
be raised to commemorate Mackay's sacrifices 
on behalf of " many millions of mankind whose 
civilisation is perhaps the brightest realistic 
vision of this century." Together with com- 
rades of heroic fortitude his dust lies on the 
pebbly shores of Victoria Nyanza. The ser- 
vices to humanity of these brave men are o'er,, 
they have entered into rest, and yet, in the 
tide of coming years, their dauntless faith will 
be as a living inspiration to Christian nations. 
These "dead, but unconquerable" witnesses 
have attested that : 

" The path of duty was the way to glory : 
He, that ever following her commands, 
On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 
Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 
His path upward, and prevail 'd, 
Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 
Are close upon the shining table-lands 
To which our God Himself is moon and sun." 



THE UNIVERSITIES' MISSION TO 
CENTRAL AFRICA. 



(107) 



VI. 

THE UNIVERSITIES' MISSION TO 
CENTRAL AFRICA. 

STIRRED by the missionary trumpet-calls of 
the great Livingstone in 1857, numbers of 
heroic souls went forth from the English Uni- 
versities to give the Gospel to the African race. 
The time is now historic when Dr. Livingstone 
was accompanied by Charles Frederick Mac- 
kenzie,' Archdeacon of Natal, afterwards con- 
secrated first bishop of the mission at Cape- 
town, January 1, 1861. In the train of these 
master-pioneers came a saintly band of grad- 
uates whose ordinations at Cambridge, Ox- 
ford, and Canterbury were memorable events, 
where the famous Bishop Wilberforce pro- 
nounced glowing benedictions on the work 
and the Master's servants of peace and joy. 

Through the intervening years of splendid 

self-denial, thirty-six young men and maidens, 

the flower of English birth, culture, and piety, 

(109) 



iio The Universities Mission 

have found rest in African graves. This mar- 
tyr circle is increased by the decease of Arch- 
deacon Goodyear, whose spirit fled at Magila, 
on the 24th of June, 1889. Mournful recol- 
lections entwine themselves with the vanished 
years. Seldom do the voyagers up the Zam- 
besi waterway fail to pause at the simple tomb 
of Dr. Livingstone's wife, beneath the baobab 
tree at Shapunga, or before the grave of Bishop 
Mackenzie, at Mlolo, where the Ruo joins the 
Shire. After one brief year of sowing, the in- 
trepid bishop fell from exposure and fatigue, 
in January, 1862; his loss being greatly la- 
mented. The inscription on the brass plate 
affixed to the cross which stands over his dust 
reads : 

Here Lieth 

Chas. Fred. Mackenzie, 
Missionary Bishop, 

who died January 31, 1862. 

" A follower of him, who was anointed to preach 

deliverance to the captive, and to set at 

liberty them that are bruised. " 



to Central Africa. 1 1 i 

The growth of the Universities' Mission, 
which is closely identified with the Oxford, 
Cambridge, Durham, and London Universities, 
and the English dioceses, has been on the 
whole remarkably progressive. All along the 
line of its operations a great advance was re- 
ported during the last decade. The teaching 
staff, English and African, was under forty in 
1880, with an annual income of £6,000; four 
years later, the receipts amounted to £8,000, 
the workers then numbering eighty. In 1888 
there was a notable increase, comprising in 
numbers an aggregate of 1 bishop, 25 English 
and 2 African clergy, 25 laymen, 20 ladies, and 
32 native readers and teachers — 105 in all, 
with a financial return of £16,2.80. The whole 
of the funds are sent to the bishop, who dis- 
burses them according to his own judgment. 
From 1 88 1 to 1888 a sum of £107,000 was ex- 
pended in miscellaneous outlays. 

For its aggressive labours there are four 
bases, respectively situated on the eastern shore 
of Lake Nyasa, with Lukoma Island as the 
headquarters ; the Rovuma River, of which 



1 1 2 The Universities Mission 

Newala is the central station ; Zanzibar Island 
and the Usambara country represented by 
Magila. Through its fourteen stations it is 
estimated that the influence of the mission 
covers an area of twenty-five thousand square 
miles. Principles not inferior to those of a 
Gregory or a Francis control its polity. These 
are : (i) to have no resort to civil government ; 
(2) not to seek after political power ; (3) to 
have nothing to do with annexation. With 
these are united the system of voluntary work- 
ers and of community life in its active aspect. 
In a debate, in 1889, in the House of Lords, 
on British Missionaries in East Africa, Viscount 
Halifax said : "There was no nobler record of 
work done for God, or with a more absolute 
and entire sacrifice of self, than was to be found 
in the history of that mission." To the credit 
of its heralds, the Universities' Mission " had 
already succeeded in setting a great part of the 
African continent moving onward in a new 
path." 

Pioneered by Dr. Livingstone the first settle- 
ment was northeast of Blantyre, at Magomero, 



to Central Africa. 1 1 



in July, 1 86 1. In 1862 it was resolved, when 
disease had carried off Bishop Mackenzie and 
several comrades, to transplant the station to 
Chibisas on the Shire. This spot was scarcely 
less disastrous and fatal. Under the direction 
of Bishop Tozer, the successor of Mackenzie, a 
sphere was chosen on Mount Morambala, ad- 
joining the confluence of the Shire and Zam- 
besi. Again climatic troubles thickly befell 
the witness-bearers, which led Bishop Tozer to 
make an exodus to Zanzibar, in the hope of 
founding Christian homesteads on the mainland 
and in training redeemed slave children. It 
was in 1864 that the bishop was reinforced by 
that grand missionary, Dr. Steere, and, together, 
in comparative obscurity, these yokefellows 
from 1864 to 1874 laid broad and deep the cor- 
ner-stones of the mission in the power of faith. 
In 1874 Bishop Tozer resigned, exhausted 
and shattered in health, and the same year 
Edward Steere was appointed third bishop of 
the mission. By his polished, intellectual gifts, 
disciplined religious character, physical strength, 
and deep, human sympathies, Bishop Steere 



H4 The Universities Mission 



m 
was finely endowed for the commission on 

which his mark has been ineffaceably stamped. 
With unconsumable ardour he threw himself 
" against the desolating ignorance and barbar- 
ism of the East African coast and the districts 
which supply the bulk of the slave trade." He 
swerved from no kind of labour. The bishop 
was quite as expert as carpenter, compositor, 
printer, bricklayer, and architect, as he was 
ably equipped in the departments of organis- 
ing, negotiation, philology, and scholarship. 
Gifted with a striking personality and rare 
charm of address, he drew about himself a 
group of men having the soul of heroism, whose 
exalted lives and deeds were in reputation 
throughout East Central Africa. Early in his 
missionary career the bishop reduced the Swa- 
hili and Yao tongues to a written form. Dic- 
tionaries, grammars, manuals, and story-books 
issued from his hand, the latter entertaining 
the natives and familiarizing their intercourse 
with the Europeans. The greater labours of 
this apostolic man were directed to the trans- 
lation into the Swahili of the New Testament, 



to Central Africa. 1 1 5 

the Old Testament from Genesis to Isaiah, and 
the Book of Common Prayer. By Archdeacon 
Hodgson, who has latterly been obliged to 
withdraw from the mission, the unfinished 
translation of the Old Testament has been 
completed, an achievement which will lastingly 
associate his name with that of the distin- 
guished bishop. Said Bishop Steere, " Our 
work must be all unsound without a vernacular 
Bible." His prolonged travels on foot in the 
formation of missions, visiting chiefs, rescuing 
slaves, and sustaining stations, well-nigh defy 
credibility, and, to his memory, the Slave Mar- 
ket Church at Zanzibar is a worthy monument. 
Referring to this edifice, on whose site thou- 
sands of slaves were annually sold, the late Sir 
Bartle Frere remarked : " It seemed to him and 
others as the fulfilment of a beautiful dream, 
which seemed hardly possible ten or twelve 
years ago, when he saw the market-place at 
Zanzibar, a filthy place, crowded with slaves, 
laid out side by side in hopeless despondency, 
without a smile on their face, without a symp- 
tom of humanity about them besides the out- 



1 1 6 The Universities Mission 

ward form. It was almost impossible to be- 
lieve that where these scores and scores of 
slaves were then stretched out there was now 
a cathedral." In this sanctuary which the 
bishop's own skill raised he (the bishop) was 
buried in 1882, two years after the celebration 
of the first holy communion within its walls. 
It was on the 27th day of August of the same 
year that Bishop Steere, a prince among mis- 
sionaries, fell asleep at Zanzibar. For nine- 
teen years he had served the mission, eight of 
which were embraced by the bishopric. One 
of those who plough deep furrows in the field 
of the world's soil, his affection for East Africa 
was not exceeded by the fabled love of Ulysses 
for his rugged Ithaca. 

Work for God was commenced in succession 
at Magila, thirty miles north-west of Pangani, 
and at Masasi, north of the Rovuma, and, upon 
the desolation of the Masasi station in 1882 by 
the terrible Magwangwara, — the vandals of the 
southern Rovuma, — the headquarters of the 
mission were located at Newala, 100 miles in- 
land from the coast town of Lindi. 



to Central Africa. 1 1 7 

Eminently treading in the footsteps of Bish- 
op Steere on the eastern shores of Nyasa, the 
record of the Rev. P. W. Johnson, who entered 
the Universities' mission field in 1876, illus- 
trates the type of man by whom : — 

" The doorways of the dark are broken." 

For two years he toiled solitarily at Mwembe, 
until Mtaka expelled him in 1881. The year 
following, together with the Rev. C. A. Janson, 
he journeyed to Chitejis, on Lake Nyasa, where 
his co-labourer died. Upwards of eighteen 
months sadly alone and in hourly peril he 
proclaimed " the unsearchable riches of Christ," 
To his necessities the members of the Free 
Church at Bandawe, on the opposite coast, 
often ministered previous to Mr. Johnson's 
collapse, worn out by toilsome exertions. At 
Quillimane on furlough, his sight totally failed 
him and, on its partial restoration he embarked 
for England, where, by generous donations a 
sum of ,£4,000 was subscribed for the Charles 
Janson missionary vessel. A companion boat, 
the Nyassa steam-launch, has since been floated 



1 1 8 The Universities Mission 

on the blue waters of leafy-fringed Nyasa. Of 
his calling this much-tried missionary has said : 
" We have on the water a grand sphere of in- 
dependent influence, helping chiefs and their 
people ; slavers and the oppressed all need help 
alike, none can be lopped off by us, while none 
welcome us wholly." 

At Magila, the centre of the territory where 
the Arabs and Germans have been oft antago- 
nists, and also the region in which the Bondei 
and Masai wage bloody feuds, Christianity has 
won eventful triumphs. Near to these districts 
are the four stations Umba, Mkuzi, Msaraka, 
and Misozwe. Here invaluable help was ren- 
dered by Archdeacon Farler, whose enforced 
retirement through physical weakness has been 
sincerely deplored. Of this mission ground 
the Earl of Dundonald wrote : " The missions 
at Magila are doing a noble work. Surround- 
ing them is a population over whom they exer- 
cise a great influence. In their churches the 
heathen are taught the existence of a God ; 
in their schools are taught the sons of the 
chiefs, who will rule over important tribes ; in 






to Central Africa. 119 

their workshops are taught useful handicrafts ; 
in their hospitals the sickness of the people is 
alleviated." Right nobly did the missionaries 
stand by the native Christians amid the hostil- 
ities of 1889 m their neighbourhood, 

Kiungani College, for the education of a na- 
tive ministry — a cherished project of Bishop 
Steele's — was opened in 1888. Under the shad- 
ows of the lovely St. John's Church at Mbweni, 
south of Kiungani, the numerous agencies em- 
ployed in training and supporting hundreds of 
freed slaves enjoy growing prosperity. At the 
several mission centres the European mission- 
aries are thus distributed : at Zanzibar, 10 ; 
Kiungani, 7 ; Mbweni, 10 ; Lake Nyasa, 9 ; 
Rovuma, 6 ; and at Magila, 18, On his visit to 
England in 1891, Archdeacon Maples, an admi- 
rable missionary-witness, stated that they were 
training a native ministry which in time would 
enable the English missionaries to withdraw 
and leave the work in the hands of African 
teachers and preachers. Notwithstanding their 
slow progress, there was a large band of Afri- 
can workers, both men and women, formerly 



120 The Universities Missio7i 

released slaves, who were doing excellent serv- 
ice, while a native ordained minister was at 
present working with much greater success 
than any of the white missionaries. 

Charles Alan Smythies, the fourth bishop, 
consecrated on November 30, 1883, has worn 
with distinction the mantle of his illustrious 
predecessor, His fortitude, winsomeness, self- 
abnegation, independence, and strength of pur- 
pose have endeared his name among fellow- 
messengers, kindred societies, African tribes 
and, not a few of the better class Arab mer- 
chants. The herculean energy of the bishop 
has had signal proof. On his return to Eng- 
land in 1888, after four years' absence, it was 
reported that he had made foot journeys of 
more than five thousand miles ! His spirit 
of devotedness was further confirmed by his 
prompt re-embarkation, from furlough, for his 
unrepresented diocese, when apprised of the 
conflicts on the East Coast, where his attitude 
carried golden opinions. It was distressing to 
be informed at the close of 1891, that his health 
had been much enfeebled, intensified by an 



to Central Africa. i 2 1 

attack of malarial fever, causing him to write 
in pathetic terms, " all the strength seems to 
have gone out of me." Knowing that the 
Bishop held a living at Cardiff, Wales, in his 
early years, and was marked out for speedy 
preferment, it speaks volumes for his sacrifice 
and courage that he should have chosen one 
of the most perilous fields of service in the 
Dark Continent. 

Every sympathy will be felt for the Mission 
which had to report at the beginning of 1892, 
a lack of volunteers, a circumstance imperilling 
the maintenance of important stations. This 
barrenness it will be hoped may only be of 
temporary duration. What the Mission has 
accomplished may be inferred from a testimony 
by Mr. H. H. Johnston, British Commissioner 
in Central Africa. He says : " In his journey- 
ings in East Africa he had always felt, without 
any information or even rumours from the na- 
tives, when he was approaching the vicinity of 
one of the stations of the Universities' Mis- 
sion. Round them there w T as the radiance of > 



122 The Universities Mission. 

' sweetness and light ' and evidences of civilisa- 
tion abounded." 

Honour be to those who are reclaiming 
Afric's lost children and, by the might of the 
Gospel endeavouring to place their feet on the 
highway of salvation ! 



PIONEERING IN THE BAROTSI 

KINGDOM, ON THE UPPER 

ZAMBESI. 



(123) 



VII. 

PIONEERING IN THE BAROTSI KING- 
DOM, ON THE UPPER ZAMBESI. 

It was in 1877 that M. Coillard tried to 
establish a missionary sphere for the Native 
Churches of Basutoland among the Banyai 
tribes to the north of the Limpopo River. 
The fierce King of the Matabele resisted the 
missionary's invasion, closed the door against 
him, and, finally, to mark his intense opposi- 
tion, confined M. Coillard and his friends for 
a time to imprisonment. Thus baffled, the 
servant of God resolved by Divine aid to make 
a survey of the Barotsi Valley in the regions 
and watershed skirting the Upper Zambesi. 
The path of the brave-hearted man was re- 
markably opened to carry the Gospel to a race 
speaking the Basuto tongue, a language which 
they had accepted from Sebetoane and his 
conquering warriors. What M. Coillard has to 

record of founding a mission in the centre of 

(125) 



126 Pioneering in the Barotsi Kingdt 



om t 



tribes " dark ; chained by superstition and vice, 
suffering and dying," forms a chapter of service 
which may vie with any other in the annals of 
modern missions. A glimpse at the wild con- 
dition of the natives illustrates the compas- 
sionate spirit of the missionary who felt him- 
self drawn to such people that he might have 
some share in hastening their deliverance from 
pagan barbarism. This gallant pioneer to the 
Barotsi pourtrays them as " treacherous and 
suspicious ; no savages' feet are swifter than 
theirs to shed blood. The least provocation, 
the most groundless suspicion, envy, jealousy, 
and vengeance, justify the most atrocious 
crimes. Slavery has dried up the natural af- 
fections ; infanticide is of too common an oc- 
currence to shock any one ; marriage is as 
easily dissolved as it is contracted ; and the 
family can hardly be said to exist. Let us 
throw a veil over the unfathomable abyss of 
corruption and degradation, of which we have 
found a parallel nowhere in heathen Africa. 
The whole land is a Sodom ; and these be- 
nighted people, whose conscience is dead, lit- 



on the Upper Zambesi. 127 

erally glory in their shame." A lurid picture 
of heathendom which may truly call forth his 
pathetic appeal, " We need to be powerfully sup- 
ported, lest we grow weary under a burden too 
heavy for us to bear alone." It is from this 
wide field of gloomy Central Africa where no 
other labourers toil that the cry " come over 
and help us," derives its piercing and mournful 
tones. 

The Barotsi kingdom in succession to that of 
the Makololo stretches from the Kafu River to 
20° long. E. ; and again from the course of the 
Quando and Zambesi to the watersheds of the 
Congo and Zambesi. Over this scarcely known 
immense tract of country upwards of 800 
miles in length a comparatively sparse popula- 
tion is scattered, the remnants of various tribes 
reduced to miserable servitude by the strong 
Barotsi. Northwards, in the dense interior, 
dwell countless, unvisited hordes of people 
utterly ignorant of the light of God. Wars, 
bloody and incessant, among the Barotsi them- 
selves — the aristocracy of the land — have 
greatly diminished the number of this race. 



128 Pioneering in the Bar otsi Kingdom, 

Many of the natives inhabit the province of 
Sesheke, a vast region, fiat and sandy, covered 
with bush, and indented by several pleasant 
and fertile vales. Another division live in the 
Barotsi Valley proper, a stretch of territory 
consisting of an enormous lake-bed through 
which the Zambesi rolls. On its banks and 
slopes of low sand hills brushwood plentifully 
thrives. The riverine valley is, on an average, 
flooded three months annually and, at this 
season, the water-girt hamlets and villages 
standing on the islets and in the marshes are 
deserted by the inhabitants who pitch their 
camps on the upland, sand-formed hillocks. 
With the ebb of the flood they return to their 
favourite haunts on the barren plains and 
marshy abodes where most of their hours are 
spent in slothfulness and gross dissipation. The 
native mud hovels are filthily unclean, wretched 
quarters. Before these lie deep cut trenches 
making access to the houses almost impossible. 
To an imperfect extent only do the trenches 
drain the swampy, pestilential soil. Far as the 
eye can reach lagoons and marshes are seen 



on the Upper Zambesi. 129 

in the driest periods of the year overgrown 
with rank vegetation and, consequently, under 
a temperature of heat at 112 or more, these 
spots are fever-producing hotbeds which shat- 
ter the native physique and often strike fatally 
the passing trader or traveller. 

In 1880 and 1881 M. Coillard and Mrs. 
Coillard visited Europe to supply information 
of their former mission labours in Basutoland 
— famous as the scene of the life-work of that 
God-fearing missionary and apostle, the late 
Mons. Eugene Casalis — and their prospects in 
occupying the Barotsi Valley. From numbers 
of Christian friends they had the most cordial 
reception. In the course of this missionary 
campaign among the churches at home they 
received the heartiest co-operation from Major 
Malan, a true and staunch friend of the Afri- 
can race. Returning to the Dark Continent 
in May, 1882, M. and Mrs. Coillard were pre- 
vented by one obstacle after another from leav- 
ing the kingdom of the Basutos earlier than 
the 2d of January, 1884. Their desert journey 
extending over 1,000 miles, which came on the 



130 Pioneering in the Barotsi Kingdom, 

heels of a terrible drought followed by a spell 
of extraordinary rains, was crowded with trials 
and calamities. The worst of these was the 
loss of most of their draught bullocks through 
a virulent disease. On the 25th of July the 
missionary travellers encamped some nine miles 
from the flowing Zambesi, the habitat of the 
tsetse fly, preventing a nearer approach to the 
bank of the great river. M. Coillard's success 
in making arrangements to have an interview 
with King Robosi and his chiefs at the capital 
was shortly afterwards marred by the over- 
throw and flight of the king whose country 
became the theatre of anarchy and bloodshed. 
For months M. Coillard waited in suspense 
the tide of affairs and, on the election of a new 
king the missionary had the privilege of visit- 
ing his capital, Lialui, in January, 1885. The 
king courteously granted his guest leave to 
make a survey or found a station. By the 21st 
of August the same year the party crossed 
the Zambesi with their wagon and oxen and 
had as kindly a greeting from various chiefs 
who allowed them every facility of settlement 



on the Upper Zambesi. 



over an extensive area. To reach Sesheke, 70 
miles from Lishoma, these heroes literally 
fought their way, the thinned and famished 
teams of animals requiring every member of 
the company to put a shoulder to the wheels 
of the heavily-stocked wagon. Lest they should 
suffer from the coming rainy season or insur- 
rectionary raids inland, Sesheke was made a 
present base of operations because of its situ- 
ation. Apart from this it had no charms. At 
the time Sesheke was untenanted by any tribe. 
M. Coillard then spoke of it : — " The chiefs di- 
vided, fearing each other, had fled, some to the 
islands and others to the woods. We were left 
alone to battle with crocodiles, and hyenas, and 
other wild animals, that waged war against us 
night and day." 

Through the succeeding years from 1885 to 
1892 fresh stations have been built and numer- 
ous distant expeditions effected for the ingath- 
ering of long-neglected souls. In these endeav- 
ours M. Coillard has taken the noblest share. 
His deeds bear the sign-manual of rare fore- 
sight, laborious industry, and daring purpose. 



1 3 2 Pioneering in the Barotsi Kingdom, 

He belongs to that select band of which Schil- 
ler sings : — 

" By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown, 
Divine their lot "; 

and to him a place is assigned with the mighty 
spirits by whom deserts are made to rejoice 
and blossom as the rose and kingdoms lost 
are again restored. 

At Mambora, by the Kazangula ford, the 
one official entrance to the Barotsi country, 
were planted two Basuto evangelists and their 
families. M. Jeanmairit, the solitary, ordained 
colleague of M. Coillard, — and a missionary 
force, remained at Sesheke, a geographical van- 
tage ground, and, for awhile, M. Coillard helped 
to promote the initial stages of the mission 
there previous to his departure for Sefula, 350 
miles beyond. The absence of a settled popu- 
lation at Sesheke has made systematic Chris- 
tian training and the work generally, quite im- 
practicable. Though Sesheke happens period- 
ically, to be the ' state ' residence of fifteen 
chiefs, — lords of the neighbouring tribes, these 
swarthy rulers prefer to live independently in 



on the Upper Zambesi. 



their own scattered villages, leaving the capital 
of their district deserted, save the care of it 
to a few poor slaves. A day school was com- 
menced which M. Jeanmairit had unwillingly 
to discontinue from lack of assistance and the 
absence of authority in the village. Congrega- 
tions on the Lord's Day have been similarly 
disappointing, their numbers being affected by 
the shifting character of the native population. 
Want of success in these departments has not 
hindered the zealous toiler's visits to the out- 
lying districts in order to tell of the day of 
salvation. One cheering result is chronicled. 
Two or three of the young chiefs have learned 
to read and shew a desire to enter into the 
kingdom of marvellous light. In 1887 the 
Rev. L. and Mad. Jalla of the Waldensian 
Church reached Sesheke and indefatigably la- 
boured there, prior to their settlement at Ka- 
zangula, the gate of the land. To the same 
destination came the young Swiss missionary, 
Mons. Goy, for the purpose of affording M. 
Jeanmairit a brief furlough. M. Goy will 
eventually be stationed at Seoma, the Gonye 



134 Pioneering in the Barotsi Kingdom , 

Falls, a link of importance which connects 
Sesheke and the Barotsi Valley. On the 
threshold of the country at Kazangula, Dr. 
Dardier fell a victim to sunstroke, " his heart 
and his face turned homeward." A fresh en- 
sign, the Rev. Ad. Jalla, younger brother of 
Mons. L. Jalla, reached Africa in 1889 with 
the view of settling at a new station in the Ba- 
rotsi Valley adjoining the capital. Thoroughly 
equipped by European training and schooled 
in Zambesi mission operations high anticipa- 
tions are cherished of the missionary's energy 
and enterprise. In the autumn of 1891 the 
mission was reinforced by Mons. Vollet, the 
son of a Paris minister, accompanied by two 
(" we fain hope more," wrote M. Coillard) evan- 
gelists. With this rearguard the staff consists of 
seven missionaries, their families, and three na- 
tive workers who are in occupation of three sta- 
tions, to which three others as well as a couple 
of out-stations will shortly be added. Steadily 
the mission proceeds on its course, its pathways 
are multiplying, its leaven is spreading, and its 
presence creating a nobler sense of humanit) r . 



on the Upper Zambesi. 135 

Sefula, the headquarters of the Barotsi Mis- 
sion, stands 16 miles from the capital, Lialui. 
On King Robosi regaining the helm of sov- 
ereignty he shewed renewed sympathy with 
missionary objects, and cordially invited M. 
Coillard to visit his royal kraal. The site of 
the mission centre is situated on a sand hill 
by which flows the modest Sefula River and is 
admirably adapted for educational advantages 
and agricultural developments. A large popu- 
lation dwells in the neighbourhood. At Sefula 
miracles of progress and civilisation are visible. 
A well-built church — the first seen on the Zam- 
besi River, and a cluster of miscellaneous erec- 
tions have been reared. Specially noticeable 
are the huts of circular arrangement, in which 
boys and girls receive instruction and are 
taught useful callings. By the practical genius 
of Mr. Waddell, the artisan and builder, the 
Sefu 1 a Mission structures have the look of 
some model European village. Mr. Waddell's 
dreaded antagonist is the white ant, the scourge 
of the African tropics, which, unchecked, speed- 
ily ruins substantial premises. For two feats 



136 Pioneering in the Bar otsi Kingdom, 

M. Coillard deserves congratulation — a useful 
canal and an excellent roadway. In conjunc- 
tion with Nguana Ngombe, the earliest Barotsi 
convert, a young man of talent and fine resolu- 
tion, — M. Coillard had pleasure, after two years 
of toil, in seeing at the close of 1891, the canal 
triumphantly completed. Admittedly a mis- 
sionary waterway, it is 10 miles in length, join- 
ing the Sefula station and the broad Zambesi's 
course. Transports, goods, passengers, etc., are 
carried on the surface of the canal and the en- 
tire valley is now directly influenced by Chris- 
tianising civilisation. The upper sources of 
the river cleared, a stronger volume of water 
will be available. Towards this appreciated 
neck of communication an English gentleman 
liberally contributed most of the required funds. 
The missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Jalla, were the 
first to sail Zambesi-wards on the miniature 
Suez from visiting M. Coillard, who said con- 
cerning the event : — " It may well be imagined 
with what feelings we accompanied our be- 
loved friends to the landing at the foot of the 
hill, and with what interest our eyes followed 



on the Upper Zambesi. 



their boats gliding gently down the stream." 
This achievement has not wholly removed the 
isolation of the missionary sentinel. A post 
seldom arrives more than once a year and the 
problem of conveying supplies from Mangwato 
to Kazangula, the nearest point of the Zam- 
besi, and thence to Sefula, remains practically 
unsolved, notwithstanding the road, or rather 
wagon track, which M. Coillard laid from Se- 
sheke to Sefula, over 350 miles long across 
sandy plains and through thick forests. In- 
fested with the tsetse fly and the recurring 
growth of poisonous plants, so ruinous to cattle, 
this track has been forsaken and the river fallen 
back upon for transit. Smooth sailing here is 
not possible owing to the numerous rapids 
and the Gonye Falls. To conquer these obsta- 
cles and to be relieved of the necessity of using 
the small, leaky canoes which are as expensive 
as dangerous, M. Coillard purposes securing 
two moderately sized launches of a ton each, 
one of these to ply above and the other below 
the Gonye Falls. 

Unfaltering in spirit M. Coillard has served 



138 Pioneering in the Bar otsi Kingdom, 

seven years in the Zambesian Regions. He 
describes the land as " fallow ground which, for 
a long time yet, we shall have to break up." 
Tribal warfare in many of the deadly climates 
is attended by shocking barbarities, and in its 
train polygamy of the most debasing kind, 
slavery with its horrible cruelties, superstition 
which burns alive its helpless victims, and all 
the abominations of lying, theft, and murder. 
To deliver the youth of these degraded beings 
M. Coillard who has given himself specially to 
evangelising opened a school. The few books 
and slates and a slender staff necessarily limited 
the progress. More regretably the pupils, 
mostly young chiefs with their slave attend- 
ants, revolted against the least discipline. 
" The village which they built," says M. Coil- 
lard, " and over which we can have no control, 
was a den of thieves and the hotbed of the 
grossest shameless immorality. They feared 
no one and respected nothing. They impu- 
dently rode our donkeys to death in broad 
daylight : stole cloth, food, tools, everything 
they could get hold of — even things which 



on the Upper Zambesi. 139 

were utterly useless to them, such as barome- 
ters and thermometers ; and what in the house 
was beyond their reach they found no difficulty 
in inducing our servants to steal for them." 
M. Coillard earnestly pursued his mission 
nobly aided by a devoted partner and, in three 
years' time several of the young men learned 
to read and enjoyed the perusal of a New 
Testament and hymn book. On the arrival of 
a box of these not a few of the royal pupils 
each brought a calf in exchange for a copy 
of the Testament while the destitute slaves 
cheerfully toiled in order to possess the same 
treasure. Afterwards the school was popular, 
its order preserved, and its atmosphere changed. 
Litia, the eldest son of the reigning King 
Lewanika, has been sent with five other promis- 
ing scholars to the Morija High School, Basu- 
toland. Ten girls have entered the Sefula 
schools, five of whom are kings' daughters and 
nieces, whose clothing and food beside tuition 
make a heavy demand on the mission's limited 
resources. It is disappointing to M. Coillard 
that he has often to decline the applications of 



140 Pioneering in the Bar otsi Kinged 



om % 



dark little fellows because there is no instructor. 

Late in 1891 a deep shadow fell upon this 

hopeful branch of service. To the constant 

strain of teaching the pupils who had increased 

from 30 to 40 to about 100, Madame Coillard, 

a woman of rare spiritual beauty, succumbed. 

Shattered in health Madame Coillard stood to 

the end at the post of sacred duty. Fittingly 

may the Church of God say to her: — 

" Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace ; 
Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, — 
Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet, 
Sleep full of rest from head to feet." 

Most providentially the school work has been 
taken up by Miss Kiener, a Swiss lady, who 
reached the confines of Zambesi-land ere the sup- 
plicating M, Coillard was aware of her coming. 
A brighter outlook appears on the horizon 
of Zambesia, and much countenance is given to 
it by the king's improved attitude, customs, 
and decrees. He forbids the sale of liquor in 
his capital and is himself an abstainer ; he has 
stopped that awful form of administering 
poison to unfortunate creatures accused of 
witchcraft and then burning their bodies ; he 



on the Upper Zambesi. 141 

has prohibited his people selling slaves to the 
Portuguese from the west coast ; and, for four 
years he has not offered a human sacrifice or 
allowed his subjects to practise this rite. The 
peaceable aims of the missionaries are under- 
stood and, although their property has been 
ruthlessly pillaged no hand has ever attempted 
to take their lives. To the pleas of the heralds 
of the kingdom savage natures even pay greater 
regard and at the services on the Lord's Day 
worshippers more regularly congregate. The 
mission station is a centre of illumination. A 
new missionary expedition of the English 
Primitive Methodists recently to Mashikulom- 
boe Land led by Mr. Buckenham and its occu- 
pation of a location in the king's territory is a 
stimulus to holy aggression. 

Under the direction of the Paris Evangelical 
Missionary Society and French in tongue the 
Zambesi Mission is international otherwise. 
From the ordinary funds of the Society no aid 
is obtained. It is dependent upon the people 
of God in many lands including the nationali- 
ties of France, Holland, Switzerland, England, 



142 Pioneering in the Darotsi Kingdom. 

Scotland, and Basutoland and, to its worthy 
claims friends have generously responded to 
smooth the path and lighten the burden of its 
leader whose entreaty is, " forget not this part 
of Africa." The fruitfulness of its career brings 
proportionate obligation and incites to a loftier 
faith on behalf of the heathen world. Of what 
spirit Mons. Francois Coillard is made one 
glimpse is offered. Writing in 1891 he says: — 
" I have lost my only horse — the gift of a 
friend — and a horse here is a fortune, an acqui- 
sition beyond our means. But, though no 
longer young, I am ready cheerfully to tramp 
the burning sand and the deep mud, under this 
torrid sun, to make known, as far as I can, the 
glad tidings of salvation." By this type of 
Christian manhood embracing patriotism in its 
widest sense the Apostle Paul's injunction is 
eloquently fulfilled, " Remember them that are 
in bonds, as bound with them," and the hap- 
pier time brought nigh of which a poet has 
sung : — 

" In that sweet day when none shall ask another 
' What blood is thine, in what ancestral skin ? ' ' : 



SUNRISE IN KAFRARIA, SOUTH 
AFRICA. 



(143) 



VIII. 

SUNRISE IN KAFRARIA, SOUTH 
AFRICA. 

AMONG the half dozen principal territories 
likely to be included in the future South 
African Republic, Kafraria, which lies on the 
immediate south-eastern coast of Africa, is 
already an acknowledged valuable possession 
of Great Britain. Previous to 1820 the country 
was practically unvisited and, for years after- 
wards, a few scattered traders and pioneer mis- 
sionaries were the solitary inhabitants. Fol- 
lowing its complete British occupation, the 
history of Kafraria assumed a new complexion 
and, latterly, colonisation and missionary ex- 
tensions have travelled steadily abreast. In 
former days when the Kafirs and English were 
in conflict the mission stations were often at- 
tacked and destroyed. Energetically the mis- 
sionaries rebuilt the stations and, under a 
civilised rule, they now enjoy a permanent ex- 

(145) 



146 Sunrise in Kafrarta, 

istence. A new chapter is opening, and, from 
the Cape to Natal, — northeast of Kafraria, and, 
as far northwards as the Limpopo River, the 
mission settlements of the European and 
American societies dot the soil ; a noble proof 
that Christianity is heroically banishing the 
face of heathen darkness. 

Civilisation is springing in the footsteps of 
the messengers of the Cross. The day of roads, 
a sign of intercourse and progress, has arrived. 
Far and wide the miserable, rugged tracks of a 
generation ago are covered by broad highways,- 
while the railway system, another agent of 
civilising power, has daily expansion. Cape 
Colony is intersected with hundreds of miles of 
the iron road, the chief line stretching from 
Cape Town to Kimberley. The old-time jour- 
neys of Moffat, weeks in duration, to Bechu- 
analand, with wagon and in-spanned oxen, are 
at present made in three or four days. 

In the article of clothing another index of 
advance, the Christian Kafir generally dons 
himself in semi-English garb or, if less pro- 
gressive wears a superior blanket about his 



South Africa. 147 



smeared body. For domestic convenience he 
readily uses pots, pails, and plates of foreign 
manufacture and, instead of the archaic, primi- 
tive, wooden spade, with which he was accus- 
tomed to scratch, or, as has been said, " tickle," 
the earth, he prefers the iron hoe. Dexterously 
he follows the light American plough, a species 
of import, the surplus home-profits on which, 
would pay twice over the cost of the existing 
staff of missionaries. Most people have heard 
something of the quaint, rude, Kafir hut. In 
every part of the country these single-roomed, 
grass-covered, bee-hive shaped creations with 
one division were once visible rising from the 
earth. Their day is sinking into oblivion. The 
successors of these, plainly suggestive of West- 
ern architecture, rest on strong supports, with 
plastered walls, and, most valuable of all, hav- 
ing a couple or more of sections. Whether 
grouped in isolated lots in South Kafraria or, 
in the big towns of the interior, the kraals of 
the Kafirs are yielding to the impress of the 
white man's hand and designs. 

Woman's elevation, a distinct stamp or pro- 



148 Sunrise in Kafraria y 

duct of Christian influence, is witnessed. Yes- 
terday, the wife of a heathen Kafir was the 
usual, solitary figure at work in the hut or 
down the brown burnt furrows and, to her was 
entrusted the unpleasant task of settling her 
husband's disputes with the head-man of the 
tribe. Meanwhile her "master," lazily lounged 
by the cattle, smoked his pipe, and took charge 
of the young children from morning till sunset. 
Alluding to women's work, a missionary at the 
Amaxesibe Mission says: — " Women and chil- 
dren are expected to do all the work, — they are 
the hewers of wood and drawers of water ; the 
children, — the herds and weeders, the milkers, 
the grinders, the nurses,— in fact, everything 
they can do, and many things they cannot. It 
is a common sight to see a little lad trying to 
guide a plough drawn by six fractious oxen, 
while the father or elder brother quietly looks 
on, with scarcely a hand to help. It takes the 
women a whole day to go to the bush, six or 
eight miles off, chop a bundle of wood, and 
carry it back on the head. These bundles vary 
in size according to the strength of the bearer ; 



South Africa. 149 

but some, weighed at the store out of curiosity, 
turned the balance at over 80 lbs." The prac- 
tice of the converted Kafir, who labours on his 
" location," ploughs and sows, weeds and reaps, 
is otherwise. He scorns to make his partner a 
rough toiler in the fields, preferring to do it 
himself or, with male assistance. The diet of 
the Kafir both in range and quality has not 
been unaffected. For a generation, acres of 
golden corn have been raised and much of it 
exported over the seas, its cultivation marking 
a superior stage to milk, flesh, and mealies, the 
earlier and sole means of subsistence. Com- 
pared with his paltry trading half a century 
ago the Kafir's present exports amount to 
several thousands of pounds annually. The 
Kafir's fierce enemies of the plains and bushy 
ravines, — lions, tigers, hyenas, and kindred 
quadruped, have nearly bade him good-bye, 
and each year the agricultural prospect of the 
Kafir is brightening and improving. This 
cheery picture is not free from shadows. The 
evils of centuries of unrelieved heathenism 
work terrible havoc. In hearts unconquered 






150 Sunrise in Kaf7 r aria, 

by Christ, lying, thieving, adultery, witchcraft, 
and polygamy, aboundingly prevail, the two 
latter being formidable adversaries. The beer 
drinking of the Kafirs is notorious. In the 
vicinity of towns the Kafir drinks freely of the 
white man's beer, which is more ruinous than 
his native-made beverage. Both men and 
women smoke constantly and where the Kafir 
can escape the demands of work he is quite as 
willing as the rest of humanity to avail himself 
of the ease of indolence. 

On all hands education is regarded a blessing 
of immense advantage, the foundation of com- 
ing prosperity, and a prime auxiliary of the 
gospel of the kingdom. Where in the last 
generation it was almost impossible for the 
missionary to persuade the parents to send 
their children to school it has become the 
custom of the young people to seek admission 
into the Government and Mission schools. 
Every year the British Government is erecting 
additional schools for the native race and the 
spectacle of thousands of the young attending 
the excellent Scottish missionary institutions at 



South Africa. 



Lovedale, Blythswpod, Healdtovvn, Grahams- 
town, and elsewhere, is an augury of a nation- 
hood of sons and daughters whose lives will be 
fashioned upon the Master's divine pattern. 
Much interest attached to the departure of 
Sekhomi the only son of Khama in 1892, for 
training at Lovedale College. Khama, a con- 
vert of the London Missionary Society, the 
chief paramount of Bechuanaland, and, unques- 
tionably, the most intelligeut, enlightened, and 
progressive of South African chiefs, was de- 
sirous that his son should have an English 
education. For this purpose he requested Sir 
Henry Loch, the High Commissioner, to place 
Sekhomi in a school of first rank. Sekhomi 
was met at Vryburg and conducted to Love- 
dale, by Mr. Theal, the historian of South 
Africa, and one of the foremost officials in the 
Native Affairs Office. A number of promising 
Bechuana youths are enjoying the benefits of 
Lovedale. By the choice of this college for 
Khama's son's education, the High Commis- 
sioner paid a highly deserved tribute to that 
worthy South African educational reformer, Dr. 



152 Sunrise in Kafrarta, 



Stewart, — a modern Corr^enius, whose name, 
future generations of South African natives 
and settlers will hold in grateful remembrance. 
It is intended that Lovedale shall be the model 
of the Industrial College which the British East 
Africa Company have decided to establish in 
their territory on the Kibwezi River, at an 
altitude of three thousand feet, in the neigh- 
bourhood of good water, fertile soil, plenty of 
timber, and in the centre of a populous and 
friendly district. Dr. Stewart, who went in 
search of a site for this New Lovedale at the 
request of Sir William Mackinnon and Mr. A. 
L. Bruce (Dr. Livingstone's son-in-law), states 
that the heathen natives at Kibwezi have never 
before seen the face of a white man except 
that of a stray traveller or Arab invader and 
cannot divine what intention the Scotchman 
has of seeking a settlement in their midst. 

For the tuition of Kafir youths as much as 
£8 per annum is frequently expended in order 
that they may have instruction in elementary, 
advanced, and technical branches; many of 
them afterwards become skilled artisans, teach- 



South Africa. 153 

ers, and lawyers, and some as missionaries bear 
the Cross to the dark tribes of Central Africa. 
In the schools English is taught and, in the same 
tongue the natives talk to the settlers. Native 
letters too, pass in thousands through the Cape 
post, an indication of the times, while a goal of 
Kafir ambition is to rent ground or to have a 
wagon for the conveyance of his own or a 
trader's goods. Among valued imports, — the 
Angora goat, the horse, milk-giving cattle, and 
wool-bearing sheep, undreamt of fifty years 
back, are the principal stock. 

Far and away, the missionary, uniting in 
himself the functions of educator, philanthro- 
pist, organiser, and preacher, is the best of the 
Kafir's friends. To him the Kafir is evermore 
a debtor. Though the missionary may not re- 
ceive hearty expressions of native gratefulness 
he has his reward in more gratifying forms. 
He sees old settlements becoming self-support- 
ing, ardent Kafir evangelists, schools and 
churches, over the landscape, which severally 
indicate that pioneering days in Kafirland may 
be past, in the span of another generation. 



154 Sunr ise in Kafra ria , 

Honour is eminently due to the Free Church 

and United Presbyterian Scotch missionary 

societies for their services on behalf of the 

social, educational, and religious training of the 

Kafir race. Were the episodes in the history 

of their great work written in detail some vivid 

chapters would be given to the Christian 

Church. Missionaries of the stamp of Stirling, 

Lundie, and Shearer, have splendidly honoured 

their calling : — 

" to sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring 
toil." 

It has been said of that gifted missionary- 
teacher, the Rev. J. D. Don, M.A., of King 
William's Town, representing the Free Church, 
that, " his commanding influence has ever been 
thrown on the side of the Kafir and the mis- 
sion in the colonist controversies on native 
questions. By his public vindication of Kafir 
life and rights in 1885, he did 'a deed which 
places him in the notable ranks of Christian 
missionaries and philanthropists who have suf- 
fered bonds and even death in the cause of 
justice to the slave and the oppressed.' ' ; 



South Africa. 155 



These, and like fellow workers and, of " honour- 
able women not a few," have exhibited indus- 
try, foresight, and masterly perseverance, not 
unworthy of the highest tributes of praise. 

The Kafir's musical ear, faculty, and voice, 
have deserved reputation. With drilling they 
excel as singers and in the part-singing of 
hymns they combine sweetness and harmony. 
In their own land they often charm the Euro- 
pean settlers by their quaint, melodious, and 
expressive songs. Of their vocal gifts evidence 
was afforded in 189 1-2 by the visit of the 
South African Choir to Great Britain for the 
purpose of illustrating the training received at 
the mission institutions and also the procuring 
of funds for the establishment of technical 
schools in South Africa in which handicrafts 
may be taught the young men and domestic 
economy, nursing, cooking, etc., to young 
women. These interesting visitors of varied 
shades of colour and dressed in native costume 
represented seven distinct branches of the 
Kafir race belonging to the Amaxosa, Fingo, 
Tembu, Bapedi, Basuto, Zulu, and Cape tribes. 



156 Sunrise in Kafraria, 

The writer had the pleasure of entertaining 
three of the ladies whose brightness, polite 
demeanour, intelligence, and Christian earnest- 
ness, did great credit to the labour of the mis- 
sionaries. 

No definite forecast of this race, the most 
remarkable in the South African Continent, 
can be given. In South Africa the best judg- 
ment widely prevails that where the Kafirs 
adopt the false civilisation of Europe they are 
doomed to extermination and, on the other 
hand, that, in accepting the Christian faith, a 
bright career is before them. It is usual for 
traders and farmers to ridicule the Kafir's pro- 
fession of Christianity. The assumption is 
made that every native in European dress is 
necessarily a Christian and, if he happens to 
cheat or steal, it is placed to the discredit of 
missions. Rarely however has it been found 
when such cases have been made the subjects 
of inquiry that the accused ever held a church 
member's certificate. With respect to the wish 
of farmers to have the services of raw Kafirs 
rather than Christians the missionaries boldly 



South Africa. 1 5 7 



reply that it is because the farmer more easily 
trades on the ignorance and servility of a 
" Red " i.e. heathen Kafir, who is content with 
the lowest wages, whereas the self-respecting 
native declines these terms. 

Steadily the evangelisation of the unfixed 
Kafir races is continued. Of the 650,000 Kafirs 
in Cape Colony, about one-fourth have been 
baptised and, in Zululand, of 50,000, upwards 
of 2,000 are Christians. In the independent 
kingdom of Pondoland, out of 150,000 at least 
3,000 are Christianised natives. When spirit- 
ual returns from Kafir Missions are under ex- 
amination the broad, racial characteristics of 
the race need to be set distinctly within view. 
Says the Moravian Missionsblatt of the Kafir, 
as he is seen in the Tembu tribes : " He has 
redeeming traits, clearly discernible traces, 
though sadly marred and discontinuous, of the 
original imprint of God's similitude. But, on 
the other hand, assuredly he is far from being 
that uncorrupted, harmless child of nature that 
dimly, dreaming worshippers of man would 
make him out to be. No ; his true portrait 



158 



Sunrise in Kafraria. 



does not merely include individual shadows 
and unclean disfiguring spots, but the whole 
foundation of his moral being is awry, untrue, 
impure, and unholy, plainly attesting his indis- 
pensable need of the redemption in Christ, 
that only through the energy of grace and the 
inner transformation wrought thereby can he 
be restored to his true temporal and eternal 
destiny." Towards the salvation of the Kafir 
the missionary at every civilisatory stage wit- 
nesses with joy that heathen customs are being 
forsaken or practised only in secret places. The 
missionary's station is a fountain for desert 
hearts. From it flow the streams by which the 
life-destinies of a great people are being tri- 
umphantly altered. What surprising changes 
would greet the eyes of the early labourers of 
seventy years ago on Kafrarian fields were they 
to return again ! By them the seed was cast 
into the sterile ground and, to-day, before the 
reapers, rises the harvest of God waiting His 
servants' garnering hands. 



PLANTING THE FLAG OF MISSIONS 
IN KATANGA. 



(159) 



IX. 



PLANTING THE FLAG OF MISSIONS 
IN KATANGA. 

POSSESSED of those well known Scottish 
qualities, hardihood and tenacity, Frederick 
Stanley Arnot, — pioneer, explorer, and mission- 
ary, has given fresh emphasis to the saying, 
that the cause of Missions will not permit any 
land to lie untilled. With the love of souls 
which 

" fires fainting wills, and builds heroic minds," 

Arnot was roused by one of Livingstone's fare- 
well speeches in Scotland, in the year 1S64; 
from which date he consecrated himself to the 
claims of the heathen world. Mastered by the 
passion that " the most worthy pursuit is the 
prosperity of the whole world," the young 
knight-errant of the faith reached the East 
African coast in 1881, to begin his eminently 

honoured career. Forcing a passage through 

(161) 



1 62 Planting the Flag in Katanga. 

the territories of savage potentates in the teeth 
of enormous difficulties, Mr, Arnot ultimately 
won an entrance into Msidi's kingdom as the 
first missionary of the Cross and received from 
the venerable African chief a very friendly au- 
dience. Msidi's dominions lying to the west 
of Lakes Moero and Bangweolo and south of 
the Congo Free State, embrace an immense 
area of country. Previous to Mr. Amot's ar- 
rival at the capital, Europeans had found ad- 
mission impossible. The dusky monarch is by 
far the greatest ruler in that part of the Dark 
Continent, his po:sessions standing on the 
ruins of the ancient kingdoms of the Muata 
Cazembe and the Muata Janow. In acquiring 
a protectorate over Katanga and obtaining 
concessions from Msidi two European nations 
are putting forward claims. Katanga, it seems, 
lies on the disputed western border land be- 
tween the country recently declared by Lord 
Salisbury to be under British influence, and 
the vast African territory of the King of the 
Belgians. Portugal's supposed rights in Ka- 
tanga are wholly ignored. 



Planting the Flag in Katanga. 1 6 



3 



Mr. Arnot began his adventurous march into 
the dark interior by journeying from Natalto 
Shoshong, whence he intended crossing the 
desert on foot joined by native boys and three 
donkeys. So hazardous a step was prevented 
by Khama, a Christian chief of reputation, gen- 
erously equipping the Scotchman with wagons 
and a score of oxen, a body of native helpers, 
and, also accompanying the expedition for a 
long distance himself. Battling with many 
perils and trying reverses Mr. Arnot arrived at 
the Chobe River and afterwards trudged on to 
Panda-ma-tenka, where he was attacked by a 
virulent fever. Had a noble African lad not 
nursed him with untiring fidelity his life would 
undoubtedly have been forfeited. On recover- 
ing Mr. Arnot was kindly aided by the chief 
Lewanika, who conveyed the white man in his 
canoes up the broad, shining waters of the 
Zambesi. Naturally this chief was keenly dis- 
appointed when the recipient of his favours 
declined to make a permanent residence at his 
capital. Travelling westerly Mr. Arnot fell in 
with the Bakuti, amongst whom for a few days 



1 64 Planting the Flag in Katanga. 

he had striking evangelising experiences. Ac- 
quainted with their dialect the missionary 
preached Christ to some purpose and opened 
the kingdom of heaven to the dark barbarians. 
Other native receptions were less cheering. 
Further to the west he and his small company- 
were raided by a t?ibe who burnt the grass 
around their tent and carried off eight follow- 
ers, In a plucky fashion Mr. Arnot went in 
search of his kidnapped natives, an adventure 
which he has brightly described. " There was 
nothing to do but to find their trail and follow 
them up. After a ten miles' journey we reached 
a little village in the forest where they were 
resting. They thought we had come to fight 
with them, and they rushed out with their 
guns, bows and arrows, and spears, to receive 
us. My men, thirty or forty in number, being 
only Africans, got in fighting order, and began 
to load their guns for action. I was a little 
way behind, and did not take in the situation 
at once. Seeing how things were going, I ran 
forward, seized a little stool and held it up in 
the air as a signal of peace. This arrested the 



Planting the Flag in Katanga. 165 

enemy, and at last two of them, seeing me 
seated, came forward to hear what I had to 
say. After a little talk, it turned out that the 
whole thing was a mistake. They thought we 
had come to their country to rob and plunder 
them, and quite naturally, in self-defence, they 
wished to have the first hit at us. Next day 
we spent the time in receiving presents, and 
telling them of the things we had been speak- 
ing to the people all along the road." Resum- 
ing his journey Mr. Arnot traversed a seldom 
trodden region and, at length reached Bihe\ 
Of the Biheans, with whom he stayed for a time, 
he furnishes numerous interesting sketches. 
His next stage was to Benguella, on the West 
African coast. His arrival there was a suf- 
ficient proof that Grant, Cameron, and others 
had a successor, who dared, with only a scanty 
escort, to cross the great African Continent. 

Undeterred by the narrow escapes and weary 
tramping Mr. Arnot struck inland once more 
after enjoying a brief rest. Resolved at all 
hazards to reach Msidi's capital the young 
Scotchman, with amazing energy, fought his 



166 Planting the Flag in Katanga. 

way pacifically into the very heart of the 
Garenganze country and achieved in the inter- 
ests of Christianity, what at a later date was 
accomplished for purposes of commerce and 
colonisation by Lieutenant Le Marinel, an en- 
voy of the Congo Free State, to whom the 
honour belongs of commanding the first expe- 
dition which penetrated as far as Msidi's capi- 
tal Msidi warmly countenanced the proposals 
of Mr. Arnot, whose labours, similar to Mac- 
kay's in Uganda, broadly consisted of initiating 
Christian civilisation. Year after year this 
civilising pioneer exhibited strenuous activity 
in advancing the elementary conditions of 
progress, industrial pursuits, and, as devotedly, 
illustrated the Gospel message. By his teach- 
ing and character Mr. Arnot was winning 
favour in the eyes of the natives and, in heroic 
fashion preparing the way for comrades and 
successors. He was endeavouring to exemplify 
the counsel which the Patriarch of African 
Missions addressed to him on the point of de- 
parture for Africa. This was:— " Have pa- 
tience, patience, patience, and then you will sue- 



Plantiitg the Flag in Katanga. 167 

ceed." Two brother missionaries, — Mr. C. A. 
Swan, of Sunderland, England, and, Mr. W. L. 
Faulknor, from Canada, were welcomed to 
Katanga, in 1887, and, on their settlement Mr. 
Arnot, after a chequered seven years' history 
in Darkest Africa, returned to Great Britain in 
1888, where before large audiences in geographi- 
cal and Christian circles he recounted the de- 
velopment of Garenganze. In England Mr. 
Arnot married Miss H. J. Fisher and, together 
with her and a band of strong-souled fellow- 
workers, the good soldier of faith sailed in 
1890 for his adopted country and, has subse- 
quently located himself temporarily, at Bih£, 
on the line of route between the coast and 
Katanga. 

Onward from 1887 until the time of his fur- 
lough home in 1892 Mr. Swan most ably 
directed the extension of missionary work in 
the kingdom of Garenganze. His. love for the 
children, his perception of native peculiarities, 
his unflinching assertion of justice, and his 
sowing of Divine truth severally contributed to 
the success of Mr.- Swan's enterorise. On the 



1 68 Planting the Flag in Katanga. 

journey from the West Coast of Africa to the 
interior he had a full share of difficulties in- 
cluding four attacks of fever and, was vexingly 
delayed by powerful chiefs who demanded 
cloths, powder, guns, etc. These chiefs were 
terrible despots whose orders, however unjust 
they might be, the people dare not refuse, 
knowing that any resistance would be visited 
with death. Msidi, the King of Katanga, had 
thousands of wives. So numerous were these 
Amazons that Mr. Swan spoke of them being 
" about as plentiful as the rain-drops." Mainly 
through this body Msidi ruled his subjects. 
Every important village had one of these 
women, who, besides receiving tribute, kept the 
chief posted up with what occurred. For all 
kinds of offences, whether great or small, the 
penalty of capital punishment was rigorously 
enforced. Greatly as the inhabitants of Gare- 
nganze delighted in battle and were of a warlike 
temperament they were exceedingly industri- 
ous and skilled workers in copper and other 
materials. In religious matters the natives bad 
Gtrange ideas of a Supreme Being in whom they 



Planting the Flag in Katanga. 169 

firmly believed as controlling the destinies of 
men. Fetichism and witchcraft had a strong 
hold upon them ; no one was supposed to die 
a natural death. Revolting cruelties were in- 
flicted and, the horrible look of the villages, the 
defences of which were surmounted by human 
skulls, did not give the traveller or missionary 
a comfortable feeling. For three years Mr. 
Swan and Mr. Faulknor were the solitary white 
missionaries in the country and, during that 
time they only received three mails from En- 
gland. Three more missionaries afterwards 
entered Garenganze, Messrs. Laing, Thompson, 
and Crawford, who had a hearty greeting from 
the chief and the natives. When Mr. Swan 
purposed leaving for a home-sojourn Msidi, 
considering him a great friend, refused to allow 
the missionary's departure. Eventually Mr. 
Swan's exit was effected by the arrival of the 
staff of a Congo Free State expedition. He 
joined the returning caravan and, in 68 days 
reached the first Congo station, thence sailed 
down the waters of the Congo, and, in six weeks' 
time set foot on British shores, having been 



i 70 Planting the Flag in Katanga, 

away from England exactly six years and 
seventeen days. The distance from the West 
Coast of Africa to Garenganze was 900 miles, 
the journey occupying upwards of four months. 
Of Lieutenant Le Marinel, the young Belgian 
officer who was in the service of the Free State 
and the first traveller to reach Bunkeia, from 
the Congo, Mr. Swan speaks in the kindliest 
terms. With this officer Mr. Swan journeyed 
back to the Congo River. Le Marinel's expe- 
dition has been productive of valuable data 
respecting the geographical and ethnological 
characteristics of the regions traversed. He 
crossed the basin of three rivers — the Sankou- 
rou, Lomami, and the Lualaba, and passed 
through rich and fertile lands not previously 
trodden by white men's footsteps. Tribes of 
savages were seen who painted their faces in 
loud-toned hues and their entire bodies on 
special occasions ; their hair being folded up 
into thick mats and coloured with mingled 
dyes. These natives were extremely ignorant 
of anybody or anything outside their own im- 
mediate domains and, unacquainted with the 



Planting the Flag in Katanga. 171 

art of war. They contented themselves in the 
petty feuds of individuals and families. Msidi 
saluted Le Marinel in a cordial spirit, having the 
impression that his visitor would supply him 
with powder and ammunition for use against 
some of his rebellious subjects. On discover- 
ing that Le Marinel's good offices were limited 
to expressions of loyal friendship and did not 
include the sinews of war, the monarch's atti- 
tude changed for a time. Prior to Le Marinel 
returning to the Congo amicable relations were 
again established. The Belgian explorer found 
that the earlier reports of Msidi's declining 
health were confirmed. He had reigned for a 
long period, was in old age, very feeble, and 
broken in spirit. For many years he had ob- 
jected to have the slightest intercourse with 
white men before the missionaries gained his 
esteem and secured permission to settle in his 
capital. Since the month of June, 1 891, when 
Le Marinel left Msidi's territory nothing was 
heard of the patriarchal chief until the arrival 
of a brief telegram in April, 1892, announcing 
that Msidi, the King of Katanga, had been de- 



172 Plcwiting the Flag in Katct7iga. 

posed, an event probably not unconnected 
with the advance of the four trading expedi- 
tions upon Katanga. Following his return to 
England Mr. Swan, the missionary, at the in- 
vitation of the King of the Belgians travelled to 
Brussels, to give His Majesty such information 
as he possessed bearing on the kingdom over 
which Msidi has ruled for several years. 

Fruitless attempts were made from the south, 
in 1 890-1, to enter Katanga. A daring travel- 
ler, Mr. A. Sharpe, one of Mr. H. H. Johnston's 
vice-consuls, and whose journeys of exploration 
in Central Africa have been signally successful, 
tried to reach Katanga to present the creden- 
tials of Great Britain. On this errand the ex- 
peditionary party suffered terrible hardships in 
the countries adjoining Msidi's dominions. 
Baffled for awhile Mr. Sharpe made interest- 
ing discoveries north of Lake Moero and, mov- 
ing afterwards, in a south-westerly direction, 
entered Cazembe's capital. In this ferocious 
potentate's country where human sacrifices are 
of frequent occurrence Mr. Sharpe had the 
hospitality of a barbaric ruler for eight days. 



Planting the Flag in Katanga. 1 73 



The traveller was informed that during the 
last one hundred years only four Europeans 
had visited Cazembe's land. Mr. Sharpe was 
able to verify the stories of the rich gold de- 
posits to the south of Lake Moero, which may 
possibly result in the state becoming the cen- 
tre of a flourishing mining industry. Notwith- 
standing the obstacles which Cazembe planted 
in the way of Mr. Sharpe getting into Msidi's 
capital, the explorer had the satisfaction of 
seeing the wily, old monarch, though he does 
not appear in the course of the six days' inter- 
view to have had a gracious reception or re- 
ceived special material advantages. About the 
same period Mr. Joseph Thomson was endeav- 
ouring to set foot in Katanga. To Mr. Thom- 
son's misfortune, most of his followers were 
struck down with small-pox, which prevented 
the distinguished traveller from penetrating 
Msidi's kingdom. Much interest is excited in 
the prospects of the four exploring parties ap- 
proaching Garenganze in 1892. Captain Stairs, 
one of Stanley's former officers, was command- 
ing a force from the east coast for exploration 



i 74 Planting the Flag in Katanga. 

and imposing the suzerainty of the Congo Free 
State and Anglo-Belgian Katanga Company 
over Msidi's provinces ; Lieutenant Dhanis was 
leading a second ; the Delcommune expedition 
was going inland from Ngongo-Lutita ; and, 
Captain Bia, starting in November, 189 1, was 
in charge of a fourth, journeying by the route 
which Lieutenant Le Marinel opened. 

Of what may be termed African Folk-Lore 
relating to tribes living westward of Katanga, 
Mr. Swan pens useful jottings which point to 
the origin of some of the names borne by Afri- 
can races. Says the missionary of natives in 
the neighbourhood of the river Lubi, when he 
was travelling with Le Marinel : — 

" Not far distant from these parts many of the Luba 
people have the combination ' Bashila ' in their fam- 
ily name — for instance, the Bashilange (Kalamba's 
people), Bashilambwa, Bashilanzefu. M. Le Marinel 
and I were talking ever the probable meaning of the 
combination. We knew that Ba was a plural prefix, 
but it was not until after some thought that I remem- 
bered that the word shila (sometimes chila or jila) is 
that which the Luba people use for 'antipathy.' If I 
were to ask the Yeke people why they do not eat 
zebra flesh, they would reply, ' Chi jila ' — i. e., 'It is a 
thing to which we have an antipathy,' or, perhaps, 



Planting the Flag in Katanga. 175 



better, ' It is one of the things which our fathers 
taught us not to eat.' The Biheans use the word chi- 
kola to express the same thing. The words nge, 
mbwa, nzefu, in the above combinations mean re- 
spectively leopard, dog, elephant. So it seems as 
though the word Bashilange means • the people who 
have an antipathy to the leopard '; the Bashilambwa, 
' those who have an antipathy to the dog '; and the 
Bashilanzefu, ' those who have an antipathy to the 
elephant.' We called a native, and, after a great deal 
of questioning, he understood what we were driving 
at, and we found our conclusion to be correct. He 
then told us how the Bashilambwa and the Bashi- 
lanzefu got? their names. At one time they were only 
known as the Bashilambwa, because they considered 
it was wrong to eat the dog. But one day a number 
of them went across the Lubi River to hunt elephants, 
and stayed many days, during which rains had fallen, 
the river became much swollen, and when the hunters 
returned they could not cross. While they were won- 
dering what to do an elephant came past, and, seeing 
that they were troubled, asked what was the matter. 
They were all much surprised, of course, to hear the 
elephant speak. But it went on, saying they must 
not be surprised, for it was a human being like them- 
selves ; they could not cross the river, but it could 
very easily, and advised them to get on its back, which 
they did, and reached the other side in safety. Ever 
since that time they have refused to eat the flesh 
of the elephant, and are now known as the Bashi- 
lanzefu." 

Contributions of this class which bear on the 



1 76 Planting the Flag in Katanga. 

customs, traditions, and philology of strange 
peoples are always welcomed. In the same 
section of investigation Dr. Turner, Dr. Inglis, 
and a number of eminent South Sea mission- 
aries have collected facts illustrative of Poly- 
nesian races which Professor Max Miiller, Sir 
H. Tylor, and scientific scholars have much ap- 
preciated. 

By enthusiastically uplifting the missionary 
cross the outlook in the kingdom of Gare- 
nganze has distinct promise, for which the lives 
of some of the missionaries have been laid 
down. At the threshold of the campaign the 
names of martyrs are inscribed on its " bede " 
roll. That tragic, yet sublime declaration of 
an African missionary : — " Ah ! I am one of 
those men whose dead bodies will fill the 
trench to make it easier for others to come 
after us, and walk over us, and take the cita- 
del," has an eloquent enforcement in the mis- 
sion annals of Garenganze. Through such sac- 
rifices the dawn is breaking on darkest regions 
and the prospect of a better day already ap- 
pears on the horizon. Severe is the calling of 



Planting the Flag in Katanga, i 77 

men and women at Equatorial African out- 
posts who are " painfully plodding on in their 
frequently thankless task of impregnating the 
dull minds of Africans sodden with barbarism, 
with the light of religious ideas." All that 
men most admire has exhibition on these far 
away fields in the conflicts of faith. Zeal, earn- 
estness, trust, and self-abnegation are the hall- 
marks of these ambassadors of love. They 
have seen and responded to the observation 
of Mr. Stanley that, " the time has come and 
the hour has struck for civilisation to enter 
Africa, to remember the blessing of Living- 
stone, and in the name of God and the Chris- 
tian nations, to steer right onward." It must 
be that in God's own season these scenes of 
labour shall become the witnesses of growingly 
fragrant toil. 



MISSIONARY ADVANCE UP THE 
CONGO WATERWAY. 



(179) 



X. 

MISSIONARY ADVANCE UP THE 
CONGO WATERWAY. 

FOURTH in magnitude of the great African 

rivers, the Congo, which Stanley announced to 

the world on his arrival at Boma in 1877 to be 

identical with the Lualaba of the interior, and 

partially explored by Livingstone, has become 

in little over one decade a principal missionary 

and trading sphere of the Dark Continent. The 

Lower Congo, — from its mouth, terminates at 

the Falls of Yellala, whence the second stage — 

the Middle Congo — reaches to Stanley Pool, a 

distance of 350 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. 

Above Stanley Pool opens the Upper Congo, 

extending to Stanley Falls, 1,500 miles inland, 

and, far beyond into the depths of Africa. 

For 940 miles this latter section is navigable. 

On the lower parts of the river, Puerto da 

Lenha, once had notoriety for the slave ships 

which arrived there to receive thousands of 

cargoes of slaves for shipment to other shores, 

(:8i) 



i8? Missionary Advance 

and, some 31 miles higher up the river stands 
Boma, in picturesque surroundings, formerly 
the greatest slave market in the world. Several 
stations were planted in succession on the 
Congo by Stanley for the Comite des Etudes 
du Haut. The first of the five leading stations 
was established at Vivi, 115 miles from the sea, 
the portal of the new country, followed at in- 
tervals by Isanghila, Stanley Pool, Leopold- 
ville, Ibaka, and a number of auxiliary stations. 
In 1891 it was calculated that the foreign pop- 
ulation of the State of which Boma is the capital, 
numbered 800, mostly of European nationali- 
ties, and, of the 72 English and 35 Swedes, the 
greater part — over 80 in all — were missionaries. 
The opening of the Congo railroad from Ma- 
tadi, to the Leopold Ravine, is a strong link of 
union towards the furtherance of intercourse 
and commercial relations between the whites 
and the natives. Civilisation too, will rapidly 
follow in its track and slavery receive a stagger- 
ing blow. For the slave trade and the locomo- 
tive to exist side by side in Africa is an utter 
impossibility. 



up the Congo Waterway. 183 

The year 1878, annus mirabilis in African 
missionary records, marks the entrance of the 
English Baptists into the Congo Valley. Of 
the pioneers' fourteen years of struggle only 
fragmentary narratives have been published, 
yet enough has come to light to establish their 
claims upon the gratitude and admiration of 
the Christian Church. Soldiers and heroines 
of faith they have served, suffered, and, often 
laid down their lives in the endeavour to satisfy 
the lifelong hunger of Congo's millions. It is 
not forgotten that when the Baptist Missionary 
Society presented the renowned explorer, Mr. 
Stanley, w r ith an address seven years ago at a 
public breakfast in London he spoke in elo- 
quent terms of the Baptist missionaries and 
their American fellow-toilers on the Congo. 
For their progress Mr. Stanley had rendered 
esteemed co-operation which added to his 
eulogy of the missionaries as "labourers who 
toiled as he had seen them much more severely 
than he could do in the heart of Africa, many 
of them being bright examples of the blessing 
to be derived from honest work." Of the Bap- 



184 Missionary Advance 

tist death-roll on the Congo it had been said : 
" no Christian Church had supplied a nobler 
contingent to the army of martyrs." In this 
martyr circle the name of Comber, is mourn- 
fully illustrious, embracing the missionaries — 
Dr. Sidney Comber, Mr. Thomas J. Comber, 
Mrs. Hay, her sister, Mrs. Thomas J. Comber, 
then, Mrs. Percy Comber, who reached Africa 
in May, 1890, and, some months later fell a 
victim to the malarious climate. Sorrow over 
this last sacrifice had not ceased ere the sad in- 
telligence reached England in March, 1892, that 
the Rev. Percy E. Comber, surviving his young 
wife only by twelve months, had succumbed to 
the terrible African fever ; his death chivalrously 
crowning a pathetic episode in the history of 
the Congo Mission. The Combers, — three 
brothers, one sister, and two wives, — six in all, 
a noble, self-sacrificing family, dying on the 
Congo in the cause of missions, present a 
martyrs' page not eclipsed even in the martyr- 
doms of apostolic days. Dr. Maclaren justifia- 
bly said at the Liverpool gathering in celebra- 
on of the Baptist Missionary Centenary Fund 



up the Congo Waterway 



that the Baptist Society had claims for support 
on the ground of the many martyrs and saints 
who had gained possession of Africa with their 
blood ; and of the Congo, taken at the expense 
of many sacred graves. With increasing ac- 
quaintance of the climatic conditions on the 
Congo the record of losses, previously so fatal 
to missionary effort, has been less serious lately. 
The lives of these pioneers have not been 
wasted. On the fields which they have ploughed 
and, into which they have thrown the seeds 
other labourers will stand to gather in the 
spiritual sheaves. The dust of the Combers — 
lovingly faithful souls — consecrates African 
soil afresh to the glory of Christ and His 
kingdom. They have left no uncertain answer 
to the question put many years since, " Is En- 
gland to be a beast of burden or, is she to be 
an evangelist to all the world 5 " 

Upwards of a score of flourishing stations 
such as Leopoldville, Nyombe," and Lukelela, 
on the Lower and Upper Congo, denote the 
footsteps of English Baptist missionaries, which 
carry the promise of future developments and 



1 86 Missionary Advance 

conquests. From the base at Leopoldville the 
work of the Society extends over 900 miles up 
the river and, to it belongs the honour of hav- 
ing launched in 1882 the first decked steamer 
on the upper river, — The Peace, a gift of Mr. 
Arthington, Leeds. This historic little craft, 
not sufficiently large or swift enough for pres- 
ent use has been requisitioned by the Congo 
Free State. The boiler of the Peace was 
completely fitted up by some of the mission 
boys and steam raised three days after her con- 
struction was commenced. Her successor on 
the Upper Congo will be the Goodwill, a new 
mission steamer on the twin-screw turbine 
system, with twice the capacity of her prede- 
cessor, being 84 feet long and 13 feet beam, and 
drawing 2 ft. 2 in. laden with cargo. Each piece 
of the vessel with hull, boiler, and engine, will 
be carried on the shoulders of natives some 230 
miles over rough hilly roads to her destination 
at Stanley Pool. The specifications were drawn 
up by Mr. George Grenfell, the honoured and 
gifted missionary, who will superintend the 
building. Welcomed service will be rendered 



tip the Congo Waterway, 187 

by the Goodwill in communicating with the 
missionaries and stations hundreds of miles 
apart. In aiding this branch of mission work 
it is proposed by the Centenary Fund to devote 
£5,000 for the purchase of a Congo steamer. 
How faintly are the huge waterways of the 
Congo apprehended! It is reported that 1,000 
miles of its course have never been visited by 
any missionary and, another 2,000 miles only 
had a passing glimpse. Facts of this nature 
demonstrate the need of a missionary flotilla to 
cruise on these broad, shining waters in the 
Master's name. 

The disappointment that four only of the 
proposed ten fresh stations have been erected 
since 1885 is due to. the frequent sickness and 
decease of missionary workers and, in a meas- 
ure, to the difficulties which beset the mission- 
aries among such a diversity of tribes and 
strange languages. " They were face to face," 
said Mr. Grenfell, "with the darkest mass of 
heathendom the world knew." Keenly were 
the ambassadors of peace alive to the enormous 
dimensions of the task before them and prayer- 



Missionary Advance 



fully begged the churches at home to stand by 
them in sending forth volunteers for the great 
campaign. The missionaries and explorers 
knew 6,000 miles of river, or a coast line of 
12,000 miles, in Central Africa, the villages and 
towns along which were all approachable by 
the missionary. There is intense dismay in 
Congo missionary organisations that at a time 
when slave-dealing on the lower stretches of the 
river is declining another awful evil has been 
brought in by the white man. Says Mr. Gren- 
fell, "Year by year the infamous liquor traffic 
was doing more and more to steal from the na- 
tives their freedom, and to bring them under a 
yoke not less terrible than that of slavery. To 
many of them (the missionaries), it was an open 
question whether the slave trade was ever a 
greater curse to the poor African than the 
liquor traffic was to-day ; a traffic which was 
reducing him to a wreck, mentally, morally, 
and physically." The wide-spread effects of 
drink are so fearful that the missionaries seem 
well nigh paralysed by its presence and in every 
direction strenuous endeavours are being made 



up the Congo Waterway. 189 

to urge the Powers, and the Congo Free State, 
to restrict the importation of this abomination 
into the State, a territory having an area of 
1,056,200 square miles and a population of 
27,000,000 souls. 

In the call to evangelisation, strongly as Mr. 
Grenfell believes that the leadership and organ- 
ising qualifications of foreign missionaries are 
required, he is persuaded that the African na- 
tion will not be mainly or ultimately evangel- 
ised by whites. He points to an immense region 
in Central Africa, with an area of 4,000,000 
square miles, larger than the whole of Europe, 
not at present touched by a single missionary 
and he declares that the heart of the Dark 
Continent cannot permanently be occupied by 
white missionaries. The greater part of the 
work must be done by the natives themselves 
who happily are showing fitness for the task. 
Foreign missionaries are less able to grapple 
with the conditions of native life than African- 
born agents of whose gifts for carrying spiritual 
tidings Miss Silvey has penned encouraging 
testimonies. To the missionaries' appeal for 



190 Missionary Advance 

helpers, numbers of the natives, God-fearing 
men, were nobly responding and freely conse- 
crating themselves that they might win obedi- 
ence to the faith from their countrymen who, 
in their turn would bear the light of heaven to 
the dark regions beyond. 

To Mr. Grenfell is allowed the foremost place 
in the group of English Baptist missionaries on 
the Congo, in his threefold capacity of pioneer- 
explorer, leader, and missionary. African geog- 
raphy has been enriched by his notable dis- 
covery, that the Mobangi, now proved to be 
the Welle, flowing from the Central Soudan, is 
probably the Congo's principal tributary. For 
this and other explorations he has received the 
decoration of " Chevalier of the Order of Leo- 
pold," from the King of the Belgians, and one 
of the Royal Geographical Society's gold 
medals, while his civilising and Christianising 
labours have been acknowledged in every part 
of the world. The King of the Belgians holds 
Mr. Grenfell in high regard, a proof of which is 
to hand in Mr. Grenfell's acceptance of mem- 
bership at the King's request, on the Belgian 



up the Congo Waterway. 191 

Commission for the delimitation of the boun- 
dary between the Free State and Portuguese 
territory in the Lunda country. As observed 
recently by Dr. Maclaren of Manchester, this 
gallant missionary is one of those who have 
hazarded their lives for Christianity. In cer- 
tain quarters there is regret at the proclama- 
tion by the King of the Belgians to the Pope, 
that the Roman Catholic form of Christianity 
is to be the recognised religion of the Free 
State, and that His Majesty has placed his 
African dominions under the direct protection 
of the Virgin Mary, as the patron saint of the 
Free State. The announcement does not give 
the Protestant missionaries any anxiety as they 
have every facility for missionary aggression 
and unvarying courtesy from the King's officials, 
Of the prevalence of slave-raiding on the 
upper banks and waters of the Congo, revela- 
tions were published similar to those dating 
from the northern bends of the Niger, the head 
of Tanganyika, and Bornu. Commander V. 
Lovett Cameron, a traveller of unquestioned 
veracity, said, " the part of Africa where this 



192 Missionary Advance 

detestable hunting after, murdering, and enslav- 
ing human beings was carried on in the worst 
manner, was the eastern portion of the Congo 
State." Equally emphatic, and of later date, 
was the evidence of an independent English 
trader concerning the same region. Gladly 
acknowledging that the slave trade on the 
Lower Congo was dying out with the exception 
of domestic slavery, he continues, "but in all 
places of the higher Congo, slavery is being 
carried on at this present moment. Slavery 
among the tribes being part and parcel of their 
social system, they naturally will not part with 
their custom until they are made to. Slavery 
is carried on briskly in the cataract regions, be- 
tween the lower and upper Congo, but cer- 
tainly, further in the interior the trade is more 
common, and of larger proportions. As regards 
the Arabs, it is a very well known fact that they 
are the most inveterate of all slavers ; they are 
not of the tribes, and therefore have no social 
system to appeal to as a license. They do not 
procure slaves for carriers, unless the poor 
things who are marched in files across country, 



tip the Congo Waterway. 193 

sometimes for months at a time, can be termed 
carriers of their own marketable bodies. Yes ; 
in that sense they are carriers." Here, as on 
the shores of Tanganyika the slave-dealing 
Arabs are being resisted by Europeans. A mes- 
sage was received in March, 1892, at the offices 
of the Congo Free State in Brussels, from Cap- 
tain Ponthier, who has been operating against 
the Arab slave-raiders guilty of devastating 
the regions north and south of the Upper 
Welle. Captain Ponthier met with consider- 
able success, destroying two Arab strongholds. 
One of these was situated on three small islands 
some way above the mouth of the Bomokandi, 
while the other was a fortified camp on the 
Mokongo. The Arabs had laid waste the whole 
country with fire and sword, the natives being 
powerless to oppose them. By Captain Pon- 
thier's forces the Arabs were completely de- 
feated and 250 slaves set at liberty. 

The Swedish African explorer, Dr. West- 
mark, furnished in 1891, thrilling narrations of 
his explorations on the Upper Congo, amid the 
cannibal and slave-capturing tribes in Bangalad. 



194 Missionary Advance 

The country itself was a natural paradise, fer- 
tile, luxuriant, and of variegated beauty and 
loveliness, the haunt of: — 

" The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns 
And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, 
The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes, 
The lightning flash of insect and of bird, 
The lustre of the long convolvuluses 
That coil'd around the stately stems," 

where man alone was fearfully vile. Slavery 
flourished there and polygamy is practised. A 
man can sell wife and children according to his 
own depraved pleasure. Women are the slave 
drudges, the men spending their hours in eat- 
ing, drinking, and sleeping. Cannibalism in its 
worst features prevails. Young women are 
prized as special delicacies, particularly girls' 
ears, prepared in palm-oil and, in order to make 
the flesh more palatable, the luckless victims 
are kept in water up to their necks for three 
or four days before they are slaughtered and 
served as food. The religious views of these 
cannibals are extremely crude. Their highest 
object of adoration is Satan, whom they repre- 
sent to be white and, to whose glory on great 



j 



up the C oil go Waterway. 195 

festival occasions cannibalism is perpetrated, in 
forest-deeps unseen, in tragedies of the most 
awful and revolting kind. 

To check and, finally, to blot out the infa- 
mous scourge of slavery in Darkest Africa, the 
forces of civilised lands and the resources of 
Christendom are leagued together as in no 
previous age. The Slave Trade which Pitt long 
ago called " the greatest practical evil that ever 
afflicted the human race," is doomed. Com- 
merce, railways, industries, colonisation, barri- 
cades, military patrols, blockades, and slave 
refuges, are severally combating its existence 
and power. Superior to these in the annihila- 
tion of this foe to man, appears the silent min- 
istry of Christianity planting its roots and dif- 
fusing its rays over the Congo watershed, across 
the Soudan, and, in Central Africa. In speed- 
ing the daybreak of emancipation on the Congo, 
and its tributaries, glorious deeds have been 
wrought by the American Baptist Missionary 
Union, the Swedish Society, the Congo Balolo 
Mission, the English Baptists, and, the co- 
workers with the apostolic William Taylor, 



196 Missionary Advance up the Congo. 

" Missionary Bishop of Africa," whose respect- 
ive ensigns and missionaries have alleviated 
sorrow, lessened cruelty, dispelled ignorance, 
broken slave chains, conquered paganism, and 
triumphantly uplifted the Cross of Christ. 



MISSIONS ON THE NIGER RIVER. 



(197) 



XL 

MISSIONS ON THE NIGER RIVER. 

SPRINGING in the Kong Mountains and 
coursing northeasterly towards Timbuctoo, and, 
again, south-southeast-ward, receiving in lat. 7 
4c/ N. the Binue, from the sandy depths of the 
Western Soudan, the Niger, — the second great- 
est river on the West Coast of Africa, — has an 
estimated length of 2,500 miles. This impos- 
ing waterway empties itself into the Gulf of 
Guinea by some twenty-two branches which 
flow through the channelled mangrove-crowned 
islands of its delta. All the renowned explor- 
ers of the Niger, Mungo Park, Caille, Lander, 
Allen, Laird, Crowther, and Binger, have de- 
scribed in vivid colours its winding track and 
charming inland landscapes. Three names 
designate the divisions of this mighty river: 
the Niger Delta, the Lower Niger, and the 
Upper Niger. The lower half of the Niger 
Delta occupied by thousands of natives runs 

(199) 



200 Missions on the Niger River. 



into the interior fifty miles, with a zigzag coast 
line, upwards of two hundred miles in length. 
To the pestilential effluvia rising from fetid 
mud-banks native life presents a dark counter- 
part in its enslavement to superstitions, witch- 
craft, cannibalism, and the white man's fire- 
water. Some rays of light however have been 
kindled in these malarial haunts and thickets of 
barbarism whence swarthy-skinned heralds have 
borne " wonderful words of life" to the inner 
tribes. 

A further ascent of one of the winding chan- 
nels places the voyager on the bosom of the 
Niger proper. Gradually the verdure-clad 
rocky heights which guard the shores are suc- 
ceeded by low-lying hills and grassy park-land. 
Differing racial groups inhabit the country. 
Foremost of these are the Ibos, skilled in the 
arts of demonology, and next, the Haiisas, a fine 
bronze-coloured and polished race, fifteen mill- 
ions in number, who have lately adopted Mo- 
hammedan rites. To the north of these races, 
who are first approached, spread the dominions 
of the powerful Sultan of Sokoto. Writes an 



Missions on the Niger River. 201 

earnest missionary concerning the Mohamme- 
dan states which stretch north and east : " From 
vast walled cities of fifty, eighty, even a hun- 
dred thousand inhabitants, caravans are always 
screaming out — to the south to raid for slaves, 
to the north African states across the Sahara 
to sell them. Weavers, dyers, and shoemakers 
work hard in the streets of these great cities, 
manufacturing the ample clothing that the 
people wear, and exhibit this remarkable spec- 
tacle of African civilisation. From eight de- 
grees latitude to the borders of the Sahara, 
and for 3,500 miles from west to east, this vast 
region of the Soudan stretches from the Atlan- 
tic to the Red Sea, with a population nearly 
equal to that of the whole of North America, 
under settled rulers, hundreds of thousands 
able to read and write, eager to read and re- 
read tracts in Arab character till the very paper 
is worn to bits. Yet no one has troubled to 
send even a few tracts into their great cities." 

To evangelise western and north-central 
Africa the Church Missionary Society has made 
heroic sacrifices and, with its endeavours must 



202 Missions on the Niger River. 

be associated the labours of American societies 
at Liberia, the Basle Society on the Gold Coast, 
and the English Wesleyans between Yoruba 
and the Niger delta. It was in 1816 that the 
beloved Bickersteth self-denyingly visited the 
first stations, so that for more than seventy 
years the Church Missionary Society has con- 
tinuously, though with chequered episodes, 
planted the faith by the banks of the Niger. 
About 16 years later interest was rekindled 
in the Niger territory by Lander discovering 
the mouth of the river and, in 1832 the first 
Niger Expedition was initiated by Mr. Mac- 
gregor Laird, who built the iron paddle steamer, 
the Quorra, which sailed from Liverpool under 
Captain Lander's command. This gallant man 
was accompanied by Mr. Laird, Lieut. William 
Allen, R.N., and other explorers. The expedi- 
tion had an unhappy experience. Of its com- 
plement numbering 40 persons, Mr. Laird and 
eight others alone returned alive to England. 
Undismayed, Mr. Laird continued to be an 
ardent worker for the exploration of the Niger 
by fitting out repeated expeditions and equip- 



Missions on the Niger River. 20 



ping the steamers. In 1841 an expedition was 
dispatched by the British Government for 
which Mr. John Laird, the founder of the emi- 
nent shipbuilding firm, equipped the Albert, 
Wilberforce, and the Soudan. With this ven- 
ture the ardently consecrated Rev. J. F. Schon, 
of Sierra Leone, and a young African named 
Samuel Crowther, whose previous history was 
as romantic as his subsequent one was distin- 
guished in missionary annals, were identified. 
The crews were stricken with fever and, of 150 
whites 42 died. From this expedition the mis- 
sionaries had an opportunity of learning that 
some of the native tribes were willing to receive 
Gospel teachings. A further expedition had a 
disastrous issue, followed by another one in 
1854, both of which Crowther joined. The last 
of these noted expeditions sailed in 1857, which 
marks the definite establishment of the Niger 
Mission. 

The life of the first Bishop of the Niger and 
the only coloured non-European bishop conse- 
crated in England since the apostolic age, is too 
fascinating to be excluded from a brief narra- 



204 Missions 071 the Niger River. 

tion. Thrown into slavery in youth by Eyo 
Mohammedans the boy Adjai suffered terribly 
and was afterwards shipped with a living cargo 
of fellow-victims from the African coast for 
western shores. Rescued by a British man-of- 
war in 1822 he was landed at Bathurst, near 
Free Town, and there receiving a good educa- 
tion was next transferred to a mission at Free 
Town. In 1825 he was baptised into the 
Christian religion and the names — Samuel 
Crowther, after an eminent London Evangeli- 
cal clergyman, adopted. A hurried visit to 
England was followed by recommencing study 
at Fourah Bay College. He returned again to 
Great Britain and on the completion of exten- 
sive studies was ordained in 1843 f° r mission- 
ary service at Yoruba and Sierra Leone by the 
Bishop of London. The same year he founded 
in conjunction with Mr. Townsend and Mr. 
Gollmer the Yoruba Mission, to which he de- 
voted himself passionately for upwards of 
twelve years. In 1846 he met once more his 
long lost mother and had the additional joy of 
ransoming at the same time several of his kin- 



Missions on the Niger River. 205 

dred from slave fetters. Returning from the 
Niger Expedition of 1854 he led for two years 
the Lagos Mission, which was sent up the river 
in 1857 5 a °d, m 1864, the supreme devotedness 
of this master missionary was recognised by his 
consecration in Canterbury Cathedral to the 
Niger Bishopric. In the busiest and most 
active of his years he toiled incessantly in 
translating portions of the Bible, religious 
works, and other kinds of literature into the 
native tongues and dialects. His farewell de- 
parture from Liverpool in February, 1890, in 
his eighty-second year, with a band of fellow- 
labourers, was a memorable incident, opening 
afresh the vision of missionary possibilities in 
a sphere of trying vicissitudes. Nearly two 
years later, on the 31st of December, 1891, the 
good Bishop, a Shepherd of God's flock, went 
into the glory with a doubtless abundant en- 
trance and followed by the praises of thousands 
of God's people on many shores. 

A few weeks afterwards a telegram was re- 
ceived, dated March 19, from Brass, by the 
Church Missionary Society announcing in a 



206 Missions on the Niger River. 

brief sentence the death of Mr. Graham Wil- 
mot Brooke, the young, trusted, capable, and 
devoted leader of the Mission on the Upper 
Niger: — 

" Wilmot Brooke at rest — March 5 — black- 
water fever." 

By the same severe malady had been carried 
off some months earlier, Mr. J. A. Robinson, a 
gifted Cambridge colleague. 

The spiritual emancipation of the Moham- 
medans occupying the Central Soudan was the 
master passion of Mr. Brooke, — a true martyr- 
missionary : — ■ 

" Wearing the light yoke of that Lord of love, 
Who still'd the rolling wave of Galilee." 

In his earlier essays to reach these millions 
he ventured on apostolic lines partly sus- 
tained by the generosity of friends at home. 
It was in the course of his third perilous jour- 
ney that he was detained upwards of four 
months on the Mobangi, a northern tributary 
of the Congo, and hemmed in for hundreds 
of miles by the most savage tribes. Having 
grandly failed on these occasions to break 



Missions on the Niger River. 207 

through the barriers of the impenetrable Sou- 
dan from the south, he laid his scheme before 
the Church Missionary Society in England. 
The proposals were approved and Mr. Brooke's 
transference to the Society's staff in 1890, was 
ratified with the heartiest concurrence of his 
former helpers and patrons. Again he travel- 
led eastward along the Lower and Upper 
Niger to enter the Western Soudan, passing 
through the territories of sultans and emirs 
who scorned the Christian faith. For pro- 
tection against the Mohammedan law which 
threatens with death the proselytizer and pros- 
elytized, Mr. Brooke and his brother evangel- 
ists had none save the divine arm. Electing 
to stand on the convert's level in his profession 
of allegiance to Jesus his much loved Master 
and Lord, Graham Wilmot Brooke died, car- 
rying the loftiest traditions of missionary 
courage. 

Not on any other field of high enterprise 
perhaps has the Church Missionary Society 
realised so much of severe conflict, crucial 
struggle, and travail in pioneership as in the 



2o8 Missions on the Niger River. 

scries of Niger campaigns. Upon every page 
of its story shadows fall. Significantly has it 
been remarked that the Niger River has always 
been a source of material or spiritual disaster 
to the Society's directors. What savagery and 
barbarism have reigned over these West Afri- 
can lands for generations ! There the most 
devilish forms of cruelty known to humanity 
flourish to-day. Fierce tribal warfare, human 
butcheries, the endless passage of canoe loads 
of slaves on tributary waters consigned as the 
food of cannibal tribes, revolting sacrifices, and 
rank degradation, have appalled the most in- 
trepid of the missionary vanguard. The more 
welcome are the signs that darkness does not 
entirely prevail. Groups of converts and cen- 
tres of faith ha've existence in these regions of 
heathenism. Report tells of the native Chris- 
tians at Bonny on the coast holding forth the 
word of life. Where in past years, during their 
trading expeditions for palm oil and palm ker- 
nel, sixty miles distant, at the Ura Ya markets, 
they assembled in rough praying sheds in the 
heart of heathen villages the same fervid light- 



Missions on the A T igcr River. 209 

bearers now gather on the identical site in com- 
modious and neatly-erected timber chapels. At 
the village of Okrika,afew miles from Bonny, the 
cause of evangelisation was making way when in 
the autumn of 1889 a deplorable outbreak of can- 
nibalism practically ruined the hopeful prospects. 
In one day, the heathen, and several village 
Christians, under a tribal passion, cooked and de- 
voured a hundred and twenty prisoners of war. 
Onitsha, situated in a pleasant and fertile lo- 
cality on the Lower Niger, is the seat of vigor- 
ous missionary aggression wdiither the Haiisas, 
Nupes, Igbirras, and Igarras, bring their pro- 
duce. The Igbirras and Basas have shown 
unfaltering courage in defying the charges of 
Moslem invaders through long decades. Look- 
ing easterly the Fulanis are seen, governed 
by Ahmadu, Sultan of Sequ Sikoro, of in- 
ferior civilisation to the Haiisas, and in whom 
the Gospel will have a strong antagonist. 
Opposite Onitsha lies Asaba, the headquarters 
of the Niger territory, and many miles up 
the river, the town of Ghebe, below the 
confluence of the Binue and Niger, which 



210 Missions on the Niger River. 

constitutes the southernmost branch of the 
Soudan division of the Niger Mission. Some 
miles beyond the inflowing mouth of the Binue 
stands the notable town of Lokoja with 3,000 
inhabitants at the foot of one of the numerous 
table mountains. Lokoja, the base of the So- 
ciety's interior offshoots, three hundred miles 
from the coast, in which a hospital will be 
opened, has a future of promising usefulness, 
in advancing the spread of missions. To the 
north of it, Egga, a town of larger population, 
is another growing station where the " mal- 
lams," or, African Mohammedan scribes, as- 
semble every Friday, to preach Islamite doc- 
trines to groups of semi-barbarian listeners. 

Ere the traveller touches these extreme out- 
posts he sees the relics of awful tragedies in 
the intermediate districts from which the cries 
of the victims are unheard within the bounds 
of civilisation. At Azumiri, the skulls of na- 
tives, killed and eaten in sacrifice to the gods, 
are strung up by hundreds in the open streets, 
to be gazed upon and worshipped by defence- 
less innocents whose fate may be decreed on 



Missions on the Niger River. 2 1 1 



the following day. Of dark Ohambele and its 
slaughters at burial ceremonials Bishop Crow- 
ther related a tragical occurrence. " About 
four days before our arrival at Ohambele an 
old rich woman was dead and buried. When 
the grave was dug, two female slaves were 
taken, whose limbs were smashed with clubs. 
Being unable to stir, they were let down into 
the grave, yet alive, on mat or bed on which 
the corpse of the mistress was laid, and screened 
from sight for a time. Two other female slaves 
were laid hold of and dressed up with best 
clothes and coral beads. This being done, 
they were led and paraded about the town to 
show the public the servants of the rich dead 
mistress, whom they would attend in the world 
of spirits. This was done for two days, when 
the unfortunate victims were taken to the edge 
of the grave, and their limbs were also smashed 
with clubs, and their bodies laid on the corpse 
of their mistress and covered up with earth 
while yet alive. Some of the Bonny converts 
attempted to rescue these last two females by 
a large offer of ransom to buy bullocks for the 



212 Missions on the Niger River. 

occasion, but it was refused them." These 
dreadful and frequently enacted crimes against 
humanity must evoke the supplication from 
the children of God, " How long, O Lord, how 
long ? " coupled with an unshaken resolve that 
such deeds shall be effectually blotted out from 
the face of the whole earth. 

With the death of Bishop Crowther, the last 
of the great pioneers of Christianity on the 
Niger watershed and, in Western Africa, has 
been gathered home. It is naturally regretted 
that the declining years of the veteran whose 
labours had been exceedingly fruitful, should 
have suffered disappointment from the alleged 
spiritual weakness of some of the converts or, 
the lack of qualification on the part of native 
African agents. There is every anticipation 
that the visit of a deputation consisting of 
Archdeacon Hamilton and the Rev. W. Allan 
to the Niger province in 1891 will heal the dis- 
putes and misunderstandings. The obstacles 
overcome the messengers of the Cross will 
again speed the Word : — 



Missions o?i the Niger River. 2 1 3 



" Till the sunrise broad of the day of God 
Shall shine on the victor's glory, 
And the earth at rest, in her Lord confessed, 
Shall rejoice in the finished story." 

The question of a successor to Bishop Crow- 
ther, the black bishop of the Niger, is of mo- 
ment to the missionary enterprise in that 
region. In a growing measure the view pre- 
vails in church missionary circles that a native, 
on account of the likelihood of his standing 
the climate better, and, even for weightier rea- 
sons, should have the appointment. This view 
being adopted the claims of the Rev. Isaac 
Oluwole, a graduate of Durban University, and 
one of the native clergy will probably receive 
recognition for recommendation to the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury. 

Crowns of light encircle the names of Ra- 
ban, Haensel, Schon, Robinson, Crowther, and 
Brooke. These servants of God scorned to lay 
sandy foundations which would not endure in 
the day when every man's work shall be tested 
and its reward determined. What steadfast 
toilers they were in surveys of evangelisation, 
in winning native confidence, in establishing 



2 1 4 Missions on the Niger River. 

stations, in caring for the young, in translating 
literature, and, in shaping a line of civilisation 
by means of which later generations of tribes 
may be redeemed from the gloom of barbar- 
ism ! Nor should the services of the Royal 
Niger Company, previously called the National 
African Company, and, antecedently, the Uni- 
ted African Company, Limited, be forgotten. 
Agreeable to the Company's charter the gin 
trade is rigorously excluded from the sphere 
of its jurisdiction. Though it fulfils a role on 
the Niger similar to the old East India Com- 
pany in levying duties, keeping soldiers, build- 
ing forts, and exercising administrative func- 
tions, the Company's officers have aided mis- 
sions, carried the missionaries and their freight, 
guarded their settlements, and, in unrecorded 
ways removed hindrances from the pathway of 
missionary progress. 



A ROMANCE OF THE EQUATORIAL 
SOUDAN. 



(215) 



XII. 

A ROMANCE OF THE EQUATORIAL 
SOUDAN. 

By the arrival of three missionary fugitives, 
Father Ohrwalder, and the Sisters Catherina 
Chincarini and Elizabetta Venturini at Cairo, 
on the 2 1st of December, 1891, another picture 
has been supplied of the soul-thrilling events 
connected with the Soudan. These long-suf- 
fering captives overjoyed at their escape from 
the grasp of a savage tyrant could scarcely 
realise that they were free with the prospect 
of seeing once more their native land. Their 
capture, and all its consequent hardships, tor- 
tures, and embittered imprisonment, from which 
release by death must often have seemed pref- 
erable, furnishes an extraordinary narrative. 

Under the auspices of the Austrian Roman 
Catholic Mission to the Soudan, the refugees 
left Cairo eleven years back. As early as 1882, 

(217) 



2 1 8 A Romance of the Soudan. 

the two mission locations at El-Obeid and, at 
Jebel-Gedir, — three days' journey distant, were 
doing admirable work in training dusky liber- 
ated slaves in various trades and in the art of 
agriculture. That year the revolt of the Mahdi 
burst forth and, following the " holy flag " Emir 
El Nejumi, a remarkable Soudanese figure, shat- 
tered Hicks Pacha's army and seized Khar- 
toum. The little mission stations, quite iso- 
lated, were placed on the defensive and, for 
months, heroically sustained a siege, and only 
yielded when the black troops betrayed them 
and their own staff was reduced by sickness, 
exposure, and death. With the termination 
of the siege at El-Obeid in January, 1883, the 
two priests terribly exhausted and emaciated 
in body, made a profession of Islamism, the 
nuns, meanwhile obstinately refusing every en- 
treaty. During the ensuing fifteen months 
these five brave women were locked up, in 
harsh confinement, in a house at El-Obeid, 
and never once throughout that time were 
they allowed to cross the threshold. Cut off 
from the least gleam of comfort and chance of 



A Romance of the Soudan. 2 1 9 

deliverance, their fate, — a life of death, was of 
the most melancholy character. A fresh effort 
was made by the Khalifa Abdullah in March, 
1884, to secure the conversion to Mohammed- 
anism, of the seven priests taken from Jebel- 
Gedir. Tempting inducements and fierce 
threats were vain, and upon their being or- 
dered to send the nuns, they chivalrously an- 
swered that the Moslem law forbade women 
to stand in the presence of strangers. Thus 
foiled, the Khalifa had the sisters placed be- 
fore himself for trial. That ordeal each of 
them firmly withstood, whereupon they were 
banished separately as domestic slaves of the 
soldiers, the priests filling a similar office. No 
chronicler will ever narrate the sufferings of 
the nuns at this period or, the barbarities to 
which these gentle and defenceless women 
were subjected. The inhuman captors slit the 
nose of Teresa Grigollni and flogged Sister 
Venturini tied, standing to a tree. They were 
afterwards driven on foot almost naked to 
Rabat, to face the Mahdi, and, in despair, they 
embraced Mohammedanism to escape worse 



220 A Romance of the Soudan. 

tortures. The departure, subsequently, of Sis- 
ters Chincarini and Venturing from Omdurman, 
situate in : — 

" the long desert in the south," 

left Sister Teresa Grigolini, the last of the 
nuns, lingering there alone in captivity. 

Throughout the eight years of bondage Fa- 
ther Ohrwalder speaks of their agonies being 
at times unbearable. Even in sickness and lying 
for days entirely prostrate, they were denied the 
necessaries of life. Upon the Sisters the Mahdi 
especially inflicted shameful cruelties, and, un- 
aware of the destruction of Khartoum, the 
captives, for a while, had hopes of relief from 
that quarter. In 1882 they received the latest 
news concerning the outside world from an 
Arabic newspaper, which announced the bom- 
bardment of Alexandria. After that they saw 
neither book nor paper of any description and, 
gradually, their expectation of again enjoying 
liberty vanished. For their subsistence the 
Mahdi made no provision. His rule was to 
allow them a few hours of release each day in 



A Romance of the Soudan. 221 

order to earn a living, in the best way possible 
and, latterly, Father Ohrwalder eked out a 
trifle of piastres daily, by tailoring and cloth- 
weaving, the Sisters occupying themselves with 
baking and selling bread, in and around Om- 
durman, for an existence. The sovereignty of 
the Mahdi, and that of his successor, the Kha- 
lifa, frequently presented scenes of unexampled 
savagery. Through two dark and weary years 
something too was seen of the horrors of fam- 
ine, the ravages of small-pox and typhus fever, 
which desolated a wide area of the inner Sou- 
dan. The privileges of the prisoners were of 
a meagre order, in illustration of which it is 
noted that eighteen months before quitting 
their land of confinement, they were granted 
the luxury of dwelling in mud huts, in exchange 
for shelters made of cane and maize stalks, 
reared by their own hands. 

In a hazardously and romantic fashion Fa- 
ther Ohrwalder and the Sisters Chincarini and 
Venturini, managed to gain their freedom. 
This daring step was attempted on November 
29, 1891, at the height of a struggle between 



222 A Romance of the Soudan. 

some Danagla Khalifas and, the Khalifa, Ab- 
dullah Baggara, semi-savage tribesmen, in which 
17 of the latter and 7 of the former, perished. 
A black female slave who waited upon them 
ingeniously planned the line of flight. This 
tender-hearted and compassionate native, ob- 
tained the camels, fixed the hour, and chose 
the route of their exodus. Lest the slave 
might be forced to give information of the 
departure, if left behind, the travellers pre- 
vailed upon her to accompany them. At the 
outset of this perilous race for life the Sisters 
wore Arab female costumes while the Father 
dressed himself as a trader. Early joined by 
three friendly Arab camel-drivers, they all pur- 
sued their way day and night, without any 
stoppage, except for a couple of days, at the 
Murad Wells. For three days they had no 
food. So great was their dread of recapture, 
that sleep on the road was impossible and, on 
one occasion, Sister Venturing overcome by 
exhaustion, fell from her camel. At the ex- 
piration of nine days, having travelled 550 
miles from Omdurman, they safely arrived at 



A Romance of the Soudan. 



Korosko, on the Nile, to the north of Wady 
Haifa. They were much impressed with the 
hearty reception accorded them at Korosko, 
and, after a brief halt, the refugees, at the invi- 
tation of the Government of the late Khedive, 
went northward, by Assouan, to Cairo. In phy- 
sique, Father Ohrwalder was tall and thin, and 
apparently about 40 years of age. The Sisters, 
bearing traces of painful suffering, were vigor- 
ous, in spite of what they had endured in the 
length of a nine years' captivity. A priest, a 
lay brother, and Sister Teresa Grigolini, at Om- 
durman, are the surviving members of the ill- 
fated mission. 

An interesting coincidence touching the re- 
leased lady prisoners is found in a recent pub- 
lication descriptive of Gessi Pacha's " Seven 
Years in the Soudan." In an appendix refer- 
ence is made to the Italian Mission, in 1881, 
some of whose members tended Gessi in his 
illness at Khartoum. The passage reads : — 
" The 'Sisters of the Italian Mission, whose 
names we will record because they afterwards 
fell into the hands of the Mahdi, nursed Gessi 



224 A Romance of the Soudan. 

by turns, giving a good example of the highest 
Christian virtue." Last in this roll of eleven 
heroic women stand the names of " Caterina 
Chincarini and Elisa Venturini." A later vol- 
ume entitled, " Mahdiism and the Egyptian 
Soudan" reviewing the changes in the far Sou- 
dan, thus introduces a list of the captives : — 
" Of the Austrian Mission (most of whom are 
Italians), there are now, it is said, at Omdur- 
man," (which is reached by a ferry across the 
White Nile from Khartoum), " Father Don 
Guiseppe Ohrwalder, whose Arabic name is 
Yusef." In the same group the two Sisters 
cited above are mentioned, and also, " Sisters 
Teresa Grigolini and Concetto Corsi." Of the 
remaining captives detained in 1891, at Omdur- 
man, whose names recall the painful events of 
1883, there were 19 Greeks, 8 Syrians, 8 Jews, 
the German merchant Neufeldt, heavily chained, 
who was captured in 1884, while acting as in- 
terpreter to the British forces, and, Slatin Bey, 
all of them leading an existence of misery, 
though in tolerable health. Perhaps some- 
thing may yet be gleaned of the fate of Lup- 



A Romance of the Soudan. 225 

ton, who had never left the Soudan since Gor- 
don's first expedition. Neufeldt was popular in 
Cairo, — a good colloquial Arabic scholar, with 
previous experiences of the Soudan. The lot 
of Slatin Bey opens again the story of a ro- 
mantic career. Formerly Governor-General of 
Darfur, and a man of intrepid heart, he fought 
27 battles in defence of his province before 
surrendering to the Mahdi's nominee, — follow- 
ing the defeat of Hicks Pacha's column. He 
accompanied Mohammed Ahmed to Khartoum, 
saw with his own eyes, its downfall, and, on the 
Mahdi's death, was made one of the Khalifa's 
Mulazimin, or, body-guard. Invariably in at- 
tendance on the Khalifa, the movements of 
Slatin, who was accustomed to stand in the 
outer courtyard, were quickly and closely 
noticed by his master from within the halls 
of the palace. 

Of the great Soudan, which Sir Samuel 
Baker still holds, may, under a just rule, be- 
come one of the most fruitful countries in the 
world, notably, as a source of cotton supply, 
the refugees brought the latest reliable tidings. 



226 A Romance of the Soudan. 

Omdurman was a strong city, of no mean 
celebrity with many stone houses and a popu- 
lation of about 150,000 inhabitants, consisting 
of a mixture of all the tribes in the Soudan. 
With the Khalifa Abdullah, are the Khalifs, 
Ali El-Faruch and Ali El-Karer or El-Sherif. 
Other personages of importance there include 
Jakub, the brother and factotum of Abdullah, 
and Jadi Ahmed and Nur-el-Gerefani, and the 
treasurer, Bet-el-mal. Upwards of two thou- 
sand slaves represent the Abdullah's troops. 
When the three missionary captives were flee- 
ing they espied at a lonely spot, called Esaa, 
two days' journey south of Khartoum, the 
burial-place of Olivier Pain, who, it seems, fall- 
ing from his camel, through sickness, was cap- 
tured. His body lies below a few inches of 
sand. Except in Kordofan food was cheap and 
usually plentiful over the Soudan, where most 
of the well-meaning tribes would welcome the 
return of a stable, Egyptian sway. Despite 
the Khalifa's numerous following the majority 
of these were only slightly attached to him 
personally which gave weight to Father Ohr- 



A Romance of the Soudan. 227 

walder's opinion that, in the endlessly, dis- 
turbed state of affairs, a small force might 
easily re-conquer much of the Soudan, save it 
from ruin, and the waste of years of patriotic 
labours which a succession of distinguished 
men have given for its reclamation. Darfur 
is deserted. Kordofan is occupied by Emir 
Mahmud Ahmed and Emir Abd-el-Bogi, — rela- 
tions of Abdullah ; who, at El-Obeid, have fif- 
teen hundred soldiers. On the White Nile, the 
posts are Djebel-Red-giaf, Lado, and Fashoda ; 
Emir Zeki Tamal, ruling at the latter place, 
with nearly six thousand men. In Sennaar, 
the most advanced post is Karkoe, and at Gala- 
bet, Emir Mohammed Ali, has a fortified one. 
At Kassala, some five hundred men are armed 
with guns, and, at Berber, Emir Zeki rules, 
and Yunez, at Dongola. The two last named 
positions abandoned a few years ago by the 
British, are regarded as" the keys of that portion 
of the Soudan which commands the Nile be- 
tween Khartoum and Assouan. As the great 
centres of the Soudan trade and the granaries 
of the country they are of prime concern to 



228 A Romance of the Soudan. 

merchants and the commercial world. Khar- 
toum, — the city of the heroic General Gordon, 
that " soldier-priest," of whom the nations have 
said with one acclaim : — 

" A man more pure and bold and just 
Was never born into the earth ; " — 

is forsaken. Weeds grow over its ruins. The 
sites of the houses are covered with vegetation. 
Only the gardens, the Austrian Church, and 
Gordon's palace, all in decay, are seen in deso- 
late Khartoum. 

Faint hopes remain of freeing the 40, or more 
Europeans, in the clutch of the Khalifa Abdul- 
lah, at Omdurman, save through the success of 
the rescue expedition to be headed by three 
European officers in the autumn of 1892. 
Beneath the shadow of the unscrupulous, igno- 
rant, oppressing, and cruel Abdullah, whose 
professed subjects would gladly hail relief from 
his tyranny, the lives of the captives are drea- 
rily wasting away. The territory vaguely de- 
fined by the term, "Soudan," is of immense 
extent, with an area nearly equal to that of 
India, embracing a million and a half square 



A Romance of the Soudan. 229 

miles, peopled by races, eleven millions in num- 
ber, and, of wide diversities in speech, charac- 
teristics, physiognomy, and tribal antagonisms. 
The Soudanese native population which thirty 
years ago was constantly diminishing by in- 
ternal and desperate feuds, and exportations to 
the slave markets at Cairo and Mecca, has 
latterly been steadily increasing. By the gar- 
risons of the Egyptian Government, weak and 
corrupt in many respects, a reign of order was 
partially established and, a decisive check given 
to slave-bartering, the beneficial effects of which 
are felt at the present hour on the population. 
For these multiplying hordes the produce of 
the soil is becoming insufficient and, conse- 
quently, the hardier and more adventurous 
tribes are migrating in search of fresh terri- 
tories and empire beyond. This so-called 
" flood of barbarism " trending on the confines 
of Upper Egypt cannot be unaffected by the 
enlightening rule which is transfiguring the 
civil life of Egypt and ushering in an epoch of 
national prosperity. 

Over Egypt, the u gift of the Nile," the 



230 A Romance of the Soudan. 

gateway to the burning Soudan, the sky is 
brightening. Egypt's finances, legislation, and 
material status, indicate that she is beginning 
to march with the nations. A modified taxa- 
tion, a rise in land values, an expanding export 
trade, and, a growing revenue, are some of the 
first-fruits of a humane and masterly adminis- 
tration. The old native executive wherein a 
certain type of provincial governor had un- 
questioned license was wrong in principle, pro- 
lific in abominations, and utterly demoralising. 
This system based on extortion and the lash 
has disappeared. A new era has dawned. Sir 
Evelyn Baring and his brilliant staff have in- 
augurated the initial stages of a healthy civili- 
sation. They have swept abuses aside and 
energetically laboured for future reforms. The 
training of superior natives for official posts 
has been kept to the forefront and thus in a 
short time the dearth of capable young Egyp- 
tians will be met by the spread of educational 
advantages and, familiarity with European 
ideas and forms of government. For triumphs 
in extensive drainage and irrigation the year 



A Romance of the Soudan. 231 

1 89 1 in the annals of Egypt, under the British 
regime, will have historic mark. The most 
sanguine predictions respecting the barrage 
works were surpassed, the cotton crop being 
larger than any of previous years. In accom- 
plishing this scheme three steps were adopted ; 
the waters of the Nile were gathered, thence 
distributed into capacious channels, and, lastly, 
sound precautions taken that the poorer na- 
tives should not be exploited by their richer 
neighbours. It is not improbable that in a few 
years the flood-waters of the ancient Nile may 
be caught in gigantic reservoirs in Upper 
Egypt, and, by this means, areas of land in the 
lower districts receive supplies of the precious 
liquid during the hot season. For these en- 
gineering achievements in operation and in 
prospect, the Egyptian peasant is as much a 
debtor to the genius of Sir Colin Moncrieff, as 
he is in civil and military affairs, to Colonel 
Kitchener's zeal, ability, and jurisdiction. 

With the sway of a progressive Government 
in Egypt Proper whether directed by European 
Powers or subject to the independent rule of 



232 A Romance of the Soudan. 

His Highness, the young Khedive, Abbas Pasha 
Helmy, the stream of life and of modern civili- 
sation must flow southwards to the desert tribes 
who have their home in the Eastern Soudan. 
In that sphere of the Dark Continent weird 
and fascinating historical dramas have figured, 
where Ethiopian, Egyptian, Persian, Roman, 
Grecian, Saracen, and Turkish waves of con- 
quest have successively rolled and vanished, 
leaving faint traces of their sovereign dynasties. 
Gazing east and west from the foliaged and 
castle-studded banks of the Upper Nile over 
hundreds of miles of arable tracts and Saharan 
wastes of yellow sand a mass of heathenism — 
deep, awful, and profound — has its habitation, 
unbroken by a single beam of divine light. 
Afar off on the horizon northward, the dawn of 
an early morning sunlight glimmers. To the 
natives of the wide-spreading Soudan, the 
North Africa Mission, the Church Missionary 
Society, and the Central Soudan Mission in 
Tripoli, are turning their thoughts and ener- 
gies. " Truth shall spring out of the earth "; 
and, in ransoming Soudanese Ethiopians, Be- 



A Romance of the Soudan. 2 



j o 



douins, Nubae, and Berberines, the American 
missionaries on the Nile and their British col- 
leagues in the Dependency of Tripoli promise 
to become the heralds of Christ in evangelising 
races lying in the region of the shadow of 
death for whose resurrection these ensigns not 
unhopefully sing: — 

" O'er the realms of night, shall our standard bright 
Arise, their darkness clearing ; 
And the souls that were dead to the Lord who bled, 
Shall revive at His glad appearing." 



ON THE BANKS OF LAKE 
TANGANYIKA. 



(235) 



XIIL 

ON THE BANKS OF LAKE 
TANGANYIKA. 

In that wonderful lake system which formed 
a chain of communication, north and south, 
through the interior of Africa, Lake Tanganyika 
occupied a central place. The most westerly 
of the great inland w r aters, it has Victoria 
Nyanza to the north-east and, Lake Nyasa, for 
its south-eastern neighbour. These immense 
lakes, the reservoirs of thousands of rivers, 
were destined as soon as navigation by steamer 
was possible to exercise a civilising influence on 
the savage tribes which frequented their shores. 
With a magnificent shore line of 363 miles, 
Tanganyika is now recognised as the western 
boundary of the German sphere of territory in 
East Central Africa, adjoining which was the 
fertile and picturesque State of Usibi and 

(237) 






238 Lake Tanga?iyzka. 

Wanga described by Stanley as certainly " to 
turn out one of the most unique regions in 
Africa." The discovery of Lake Tanganyika 
was made before the real sources of the Nile 
had been determined and at a period less than 
forty years ago when a pall of darkness lay 
over most of the countries of Central Africa. 
Never perhaps in the records of exploration 
have two travellers returned to the haunts of 
civilisation each of whom could claim such 
marvellous " finds" as had fallen to the lot of 
Burton and Speke on emerging in 1859 f rom 
the African wilds. Captain Richard Burton 
held in his possession the discovery of Tanga- 
nyika and, his comrade Speke, — Lake Ukere- 
we, which he named Victoria Nyanza, and 
rightly concluded to be the origin and head of 
Father Nile. The geographical areas of Tanga- 
nyika show that it stands 2,756 feet above 
the sea level with a superficial area of 9,240 
square miles and encircling this grand stretch 
of water rise a series of noble, forest-crowned 
heights which afford views of enchanting 
beauty : — 



Lake Tanganyika. 239 

"fair 
As ever painter painted, poet sang, 
Or Heav'n in lavish bounty moulded." 

The usual route to Lake Tanganyika has been 
overland, a distance of 830 miles from Zanzi- 
bar, via Mpwapwa, Unyanyembe, Urambo, 
to Ujiji, the chief mart of the Lake, situated 
on the north-easterly shore. To make the 
journey along the rough, zig-zag foot and 
wagon track required about 100 days, a tedious 
line of march, which was practically abandoned 
in 1891 by the Directors of the London Mis- 
sionary Society, for the safer, easier, and more 
direct approach which is afforded by sailing up 
the Zambesi, Shire, across Lake Nyasa, and 
over the valued missionary highway, — the 
Stevenson Road, uniting the north-end of 
Nyasa and the southern point of Tanganyika. 
Around the Lake swarm some dozen independ- 
ent tribal races whose villages, market places, 
and trading depots present animated native- 
life pictures. Every part of the Lake shores is 
visited by merchants and representatives of 
motley races and people, — Portuguese from the 



240 Lake Tanganyika. 

west coast, Arabs from Zanzibar, Swahili, 
Wasagara, Wakaguru, the half-naked, repulsive 
Wagogo, the Wahumba and Wakimbu, and the 
all-pervading Wanyamwezi. On the sunny sur- 
face of Tanganyika craft of every pattern glide 
to and fro. The ordinary canoe has the shape of 
that ungainly animal — one of Africa's well known 
denizens — the hippopotamus, and hewn out of 
the massive trunk of a forest king. Roughly 
finished it is launched on the Lake, the native 
piloting it, indifferent to the possibility of 
danger, with surprising dexterity. Scores of 
these canoes may be seen in a starry night on 
the bosom of the Lake, their occupants en- 
gaged in whitebait fishing. By placing a bun- 
dle of blazing dried reeds at the bow of the 
vessel thousands of these fish are attracted and 
easily caught in the large hand-net which the 
native holds. After drying the " catches " on 
shore in a tropic sun they are packed in leaves 
and sent to far away tribes. Natives visiting 
the shore-markets introduce the utmost variety 
of manufacture and produce: skins, woven cot- 
ton cloth, mats, baskets, pottery, wire, iron 



Lake Tanganyika. 241 

hoes and axes, weapons, copper in the rough 
and artistically designed in the form of brace- 
lets and ingeniously made ornaments; supple- 
mented with ground nuts, sugar cane, honey, 
butter, salt, palm oil, fish, goats, fowls, and 
vegetables. The myriads of native people 
are hard-working and full of clever resource. 
Larger canoes, 40 or more feet long, are used 
for traffic on an extensive scale, notoriously in 
the shipment of slaves, between the races in- 
habiting different points on the shore. Prac- 
tised universally this hideous scourge has re- 
tarded for generations the progress of the 
numerous tribes. Physically, the natives are 
strong, handsomely-built, and capable of great 
endurance. At the extreme north end — a 
densely populated region — the people are fine 
in appearance, manly, intelligent, and well- 
disposed save for an irrepressible tendency to 
treachery. In 1890 they were visited by Mr. 
Swann and previous to his landing in their 
midst, they had not hitherto had any com- 
munication v/hatever with white faces. Were 
the London Missionary Society in possession 



242 Lake Tanganyika. 

of larger reinforcements the district offers a 
broad field for pioneering labours. Native 
character on Tanganyika, typical of the whole 
of the Central African tribes, was negative. 
They were destitute of the spirit of true self- 
reliance and the higher virtues, the maxim of 
traders and travellers in dealing with them was, 
if the natives do not fear the white man, the 
white man feared them, followed by incessant 
troubles and disaster. 

Missionary work by the London Society on 
the banks of Lake Tanganyika actually dates 
from the spring of 1874, when the London 
papers printed that mournful telegram : " Liv- 
ingstone is really dead, and his body is coming 
home in one of the Queen's ships.'' English 
Christians were intensely stirred and, in three 
years' time the London Missionary Society at 
Tanganyika, the Church Missionary Society in 
Uganda, and the Livingstonia Mission in 
Nyasa-land, were devotedly bending their ener- 
gies for the redemption of Africa's children 
from the woes of slavery and heathenism, Liv- 
ingstone's words : " Go forward, and with the 



Lake Tanganyika. 243 

Divine blessing you will surely succeed. Do 
you carry on the work which I have begun. I 
leave it with you "; were trumpet calls to which 
volunteers, men of resolution, — an advanced 
guard, made answer. Heroes indeed, believing 
that the Africans were : — 

" Not past the living fount of pity in Heaven." 

That high level of ardour which the leaders 
of the Central African Mission exhibited has 
been emulated by their train of successors. 
The "coinage true" of these pioneers was in- 
trepidity, valour, fortitude, and inextinguish- 
able enthusiasm, and, alas, upon their thin 
ranks the fatal enemy fell with terrible might. 
First of the martyr-band was the Rev. J. B. 
Thomson, fellow-traveller of Captain Hore and 
Mr. Hutley, the earliest missionary arrivals 
at Tanganyika. Standing on the immediate 
threshold of his task Mr. Thomson's death 
is a pathetic story. After the exhausting 
march of more than 800 miles to Ujiji he 
had visited with the others the site for a pro- 
posed temporary station on a hill ovei looking 



244 Lake Tanganyika. 

the lovely Kigoma Bay, and, a month later, 
on Sunday afternoon, September 22, 1878, he 
died, and soon afterwards was laid to rest on 
the spot by his sorrowing companions — his own 
dust consecrating the place and enterprise. 
Year by year deaths were of constant occur- 
rence including that great-hearted man Dr. 
Mullens, who was cut down in the early days 
of the mission and buried at Mpwapwa, and 
the beloved Dr. Southon (U. S. A.), the tragic 
close of whose career in 1882, sent a thrill of 
regret far over the Christian world. During 
the ensuing ten years, one relay after another 
was decimated until it was doubted by the 
supporters whether God had not raised a bar- 
rier against white men inhabiting these fever- 
haunted lands. So fearful was the harvest of 
fatality that not one of the names found on 
the Central African Mission staff in 1881 ap- 
pears on that of 1891. The conjecture might 
be made that " God saw fit to take them into 
life, and, may be, their vision of events on 
earth to-day is clearer, and so more hopeful." 
These nights of sorrow and blighted prospects 



Lake Tanganyika. 245 

have been succeeded by the dawn of brighter 
days and, in the years from 1888 to 1 891 no 
death was reported due to the unhealthiness 
of the climate. 

Than the history of the Central African Mis- 
sion few chapters in the annals of the infancy 
of missions have been as chequered or furnish- 
ed such vivid illustrations of repeated and vain 
endeavours to establish a foothold. From the 
month of August, 1878, when Captain Hore 
and his cavalcade of 225 men in single file, 
each with his load on head or shoulder, led by 
Songoro, bearing the Union Jack with snowy 
border and, in the centre of this strange pro- 
cession Juma Mackay, displaying on a long 
bamboo, the dove of peace with olive branch, 
wound through the Ujiji plantation gardens of 
plantains, palms, beans, maize, and potatoes 
and after a long ascent to the heights above 
Ujiji which allowed a view of the glorious 
Tanganyika beyond, the missionaries have 
strenuously and heroically battled in the face 
of adverse circumstances. In its operations 
Captain Hore's career has been one of distin- 



2 .j.6 Lake Tanganyika. 

guished service. At the outset he took up his 
residence near Ujiji and subsequently made, 
first in a native canoe, thousands of trips into 
various parts of the Lake bays and gulfs, to 
prepare the way for enabling the messengers 
of the Gospel to reach the remotest homes of 
heathen communities and there proclaim a 
knowledge of the " White Man's God." Mak- 
ing the acquaintance of the principal chiefs 
and their subjects and carefully surveying and 
mapping out portions of the boundaries of 
Lake Tanganyika which had not been investi- 
gated previously by Livingstone, Cameron, or 
Stanley, he then returned to England with a 
design for the steel life-boat, to be known as 
Nyota ya Assubui — The Morning Star. This 
craft 32 feet long and 8 feet beam was shipped 
from London to Zanzibar, conveyed in sections 
by native carriers to Ujiji, built by Captain 
Hore, with the aid of the natives, and launched 
amid wild rejoicings in May, 1883. At an 
earlier period the mission sustained a severe 
blow by the death of Mr. A. W. Dodgshun, — 
a faithful standard-bearer ; and, meanwhile set- 



Lake Tanganyika. 247 

tlements were effected at Unyamwezi, Uguha, 
and Ujiji. A cheering outlook was presented 
in 1880 which unfortunately was doomed to a 
second series of disappointments. In 188 1-2 
a complete dispersion occurred. Mr. Wookey 
and Dr. Palmer went home invalided, Mr. Will- 
iams was carried off by sunstroke, and Mr. 
Hutley left, shattered in health. Two stations, 
300 miles apart, were then held respectively 
by Mr. Griffiths and Dr. Southern. A large 
party of missionaries arrived at Zanzibar in 
June, 1882, whose plans were altered consid- 
erably by the painful news of Dr. Southon's 
decease. In the course of its advance inland, 
Mr. Dineen died at the new station of Uguha, 
and Mr. Penry suffering from the long marches 
was seized with dysentery at Urambo, where 
he was unwillingly obliged to turn homewards. 
Death overtook him near Mpwapwa, his re- 
mains being there interred by the side of the 
late Dr. Mullens. The health of Mr. Wil- 
loughby giving way he returned immediately 
to England and the band, sadly weakened, 
reached Ujiji ten months from the date of 



248 Lake Tanganyika. 

leaving London. Another loss came in il 
Mr. Dunn dying from fever, after a few days' 
illness. The same year Captain Hore made 
an adventurous journey through Nyasa-land to 
Quillimane and, in January, 1885, brought a 
fresh company of missionaries via Zanzibar. 

It was now decided to remove the head- 
quarters of the marine department from Ujiji 
to Kavala, an island opposite to Uguha, ruled 
over by Kassanga. The new steamer, the Good 
News (although not finished) was floated on 
Tanganyika, in 1885 by Mr. Roxburgh, a prac- 
tical engineer. After bringing her safely to 
Kavala, this ardent w T orker, to the sorrow of 
all, died of fever and dysentery. A little later 
Mr. Harris was fatally stricken, and the build- 
ing at the south end consequently abandoned. 
That same year Messrs. Jones and Rees worn 
out with fatigue and recurring fever attacks 
relinquished their posts and, inevitably, Uguha 
was vacated. The year 1886 opened by the 
arrival at Kavala of Mr. Carson, an engineer, 
who completed the fitting up of the steamer. 
So slowly had the fittings come to hand that 



Lake Tanganyika. 249 

three years elapsed — a time of no small strain 
to those concerned — ere the Good News had 
her finishing touches. The lamentable expe- 
rience of the mission showing that in deaths 
and retirements three men on an average had 
been lost yearly, caused the directors to recom- 
mend their missionaries in 1887 to erect a set- 
tlement at Fwambo, a reputed healthy spot, at 
considerable elevation. During 1887 Mr. Lea 
and Dr. Tomory retired and, towards the end 
of the year Fwambo was temporarily forsaken 
by the missionaries, with the exception of the 
Rev. D. P. Jones, owing to the war which had 
broken out south-eastwards between the half- 
caste Arabs and the Europeans, at Karonga. 
In 1888 Captain and Mrs. Hore returned to 
England and Mr. Swann, accompanying anoth- 
er contingent of missionaries, was appointed 
Captain Hore's successor in superintending the 
marine department at Kavala. The mission at 
the close of 1888 had a sore bereavement. Mr. 
Brooks, an esteemed co-worker journeying to 
the coast to enjoy a well-earned holiday, was 
brutally murdered by some East Coast Arabs ; 



250 Lake Tanganyika. 

the poor fellow it is surmised was mistakenly 
identified with the Germans, the adversaries of 
the Arabs at that period. Agreeable to home 
instructions Messrs. Svvann and Carson next 
fixed upon Kinyamkolo as a suitable harbour 
and new marine headquarters at the south-end 
of the Lake, which would further enable the 
missionaries in the vicinity to have ready access 
to Fwambo for health sojourns. Throughout 
1889-90 the missionaries were shut off from 
the civilised world. For a year they had no 
home letters and were without European pro- 
visions except those which the African Lakes 
Company kindly conveyed. At the end of this 
isolation, if not siege, Mr. Wright, disabled by 
sickness was obliged to leave the field. Subse- 
quently the mission with a staff of nine mis- 
sionaries, doctors, artisan auxiliaries, and mis- 
sionaries' wives preserved from a repetition of 
many of its calamities in bygone years has the 
promise of expansion and fruitfulness. 

At Urambo, Kinyamkolo, and Fwambo, the 
native languages are being mastered, first trans- 
lations made, schools opened, Sunday services 



Lake Tanganyika. 251 

conducted, and domestic and industrial train- 
ing provided. If these are not on an extensive 
scale or systematic in form the peculiarities of 
the situation are responsible. Commenting on 
this feature the Rev. D. P. Jones says that 
every missionary in the Central African Mis- 
sion has to attend to many kinds of work 
other than that for which he is specially sent 
out, becoming teacher, carpenter, labourer, and 
even cook and housekeeper by turns. The be- 
ginnings of the break up of savage and furious 
despotism are noticed by the missionaries. Al- 
ready the permanent settlements of white men 
are producing beneficial results for tribes so 
long scattered and peeled by the Arabs and by 
native marauders from the south and west. In 
the neighbourhood of Englishmen the natives 
crave for protection and feel that they have it, 
as evidenced by the satisfactory progress of the 
Society's work at the marine station of Kinya- 
mkolo where a village of 400 people had been 
formed, natives who were constantly under the 
influence of missionary teachers. 

To-day the Central African Mission has every 



252 Lake Tanganyika. 

appearance of being thoroughly established and 
with reasonable expectation of enduring and 
successful advance. Operations for the present 
are limited to Urambo and the stations at the 
south end of the lake. So large and encourag- 
ing are the openings for a crusade among the 
tribes to the south and south-west of Tanga- 
nyika that they will more than occupy the 
forces at the Society's command. Running the 
gauntlet of fiery ordeals, enduring the hard- 
ships of perilous travel, surmounting obstacles 
of transit and malarious climates, penetrating 
regions untrodden by Europeans, and winning 
the confidence of a widening circle of natives 
on the route to the Lake, or inhabiting its 
shores, the missionaries of God hear over Ta- 
nganyika-land the strains of music, broken they 
may be, of the prelude : — 

" For that great harmony, whose op'ning chords 
Shall usher in the glorious coming of 
The Prince of Peace." 

Slavery yet prevails in the interior of Africa. 
In helpless captivity lie thousands of negroes 
crying for strong, humane redress. It cannot 



Lake Tanganyika. 253 

be that the slave-hunters of the African Con- 
tinent, regardless of the rights of humanity, 
will much longer be tolerated to pursue their 
hideously atrocious deeds unchallenged. Of 
the slave raider's tactics in the territories bor- 
dering on Lake Tanganyika Mr. Stanley gave a 
graphic narration in June, 1890, before the 
Manchester Chamber of Commerce, England. 
A thousand hired marauders each armed with 
a gun would march in three separate direc- 
tions, "and having secured an area of 50,000 
square miles they planted their flag in the 
centre of a village where there was a good sup- 
ply of food, and here they were for three or 
six months. Then they began to slay in the 
most remorseless and cruel fashion everything 
having the semblance of humanity, in order to 
pick up what loot they could. The bananas 
were cut down, and men, women, and children 
destroyed. They slaughtered entire popula- 
tions in these regions. The elephants came 
and completed the waste of the plantations 
which once nourished large populations." 
Upon this portraiture a frightfully realistic 



254 Lake Tanganyika. 

commentary, possibly being enacted at the 
time Mr. Stanley was speaking, was published 
in December, 1891, in Europe, through the in- 
strumentality of that grand organisation, the 
African Society at Cologne. 

From the diaries of several resident mission- 
aries Canon Kespes transcribed information 
relative to slave-hunting in the neighbourhood 
of Lake Tanganyika. Under date of Novem- 
ber 19. 1890, after a reference to the arrival of 
Makatubo, a villainous hunter, with a long pro- 
cession of slaves at Kirando, two days' journey 
south of Karema, in the German sphere of in- 
fluence and the departure of Father Dromaux 
to the spot, the diary of date, November 28, 
continues: 

" Father Dromaux has just returned. He succeeded 
in liberating or buying sixty-one prisoners. A great 
number of their unfortunate companions have died of 
hunger at Kirando, and a great many more will prob- 
ably soon follow them. The missionary received — 
partly from the slaves whom he had freed, and partly 
from people of the expedition — frightful detail? of the 
cruelties inflicted by Makatubo's wild hordes. During 
the marauding expeditions in Marungu and Kizabi in- 
numerable natives were killed. When Makatubo set 



Lake Tanganyika. 255 

out on his march back he wished to get rid of all those 
who might have impeded the march ; and at Lusuko, 
therefore, he had a great number of captives, old 
women and little children, drowned. The caravan was 
now to advance with greater haste. But a large num- 
ber of captives who were completely exhausted formed 
a fresh hindrance. Massacres, of which one can form 
no idea in Europe, followed. An eyewitness assured 
us that daily ten, twenty, thirty, and even fifty were 
killed. In spite of this about 2,000 captured slaves 
arrived at Kirando." 

This tale of horrors is confirmed by reports 
from a missionary at the mission station of 
Mpala on the western shore of Tanganyika 
bearing an earlier date, Sept. 8, 1890, in which 
it is said that a Mestizo who made a desert 
country westwards had, with the aid of brigands 
from the neighbourhood of Karema, caught in 
1890 nearly 2,000 slaves, hundreds besides hav- 
ing been captured and slain, and the villages 
burnt. Another letter of date Jan. 9, from 
Karema, written by Father Josset, states 

"that a notorious slave-hunter named Makatubo in 
Kirando had brought from his last expedition no less 
than 'two thousand slaves of every age and sex. They 
were chained together in groups of twenty to twenty- 
five, and looked like living skeletons. As there was a 
great scarcity of food in Kirando, they were forced to 



256 Lake Tanganyika. 

dig up and eat wild roots which wild animals refused 
to touch. Wasted away by hunger, fever and dysen- 
tery, they were sheltered in huts which afford no pro- 
tection whatever against the weather. Father Dro- 
maux told the writer that he had seen prisoners in a 
roofless hut ; whilst next to it their master's goats had 
a roof over their heads. Every morning corpses were 
dragged out of each hut and thrown to the hyaenas. 
During the long march through Marungu when a 
slave was too exhausted to follow the caravan they 
killed him with cudgels." 

These heart-rending accounts make it very 
palpable that the thousands of poor wretches, 
many of them women and young children hap- 
pening to survive the journey across the desert 
with the 4< slave fork " lashed to their necks, 
are fewer in number than those who perish on 
their way to the coast. A letter which reached 
London via Berlin on March 26, 1892, gave 
fresh and graphic particulars regarding the 
hunt for slaves on Lake Tanganyika. The 
African traveller Herr Curt Ehlers at Zanzibar 
stated that the Portuguese travellers Senhores 
Diego Carmago and Peretz Elbo some weeks 
ago arrived in their boat at Bikari on the north- 
eastern shore of the lake, where they learned 



L a ke Ta nga ny ika. 257 

that the notorious slave-hunter Makatubo, from 
Kirando, had just gone on with a large num- 
ber of boats to Mugo. There on the following 
day the weekly market was to be held, and at- 
tended by the natives of the whole surrounding 
country. Expecting some evil, the Portuguese 
travellers followed, but on arriving at Mugo 
were told that the small flotilla of the slave- 
hunter had gone on further, leaving only one 
boat there. Senhor Carmago was not deceived, 
however. He bought some provisions, and 
pretending to sail off, lay hidden for the whole 
night in a small bay. At dawn he sent a boy to 
Mugo, who brought back news that the village 
had been attacked by the slave-hunters. Im- 
mediately, Senhor Carmago weighed anchor, 
and the little crew, with 24 rifles, prepared the 
vessel for a fight. Upon their arrival opposite 
the village, the embarkation of the captured 
victims, numbering about 1,500, mostly women, 
was just about to begin. The slave-hunters at 
first looked likely to fight, but a grenade fired 
over their heads from the boat produced such 
a panic amongst Makatubo's men that they 



258 Lake Tanganyika. 

took to their heels and rushed to the boats 
without troubling themselves about their leader, 
much less about their booty. Several volleys 
were fired into the crowded boats. Many tried 
to save themselves by leaping into the lake and 
swimming to the shore. The inhabitants of 
Mugo, however, encouraged by Senhor Carma- 
go's intervention, resolutely assailed the Arabs, 
and scarcely any of them escaped alive. 

Another communication which Emin Pasha 
forwarded to his friend Dr. Fritz Finsch adds 
to the ghastliness of the outrages committed 
by the slave-marauding Arabs on the native 
tribes. 

" North of Usongoro between the Gordon Bennett 
and Ruwenzori mountains," wrote Emin, "the Arab 
slave-raiders have had a terrible harvest. The Wa- 
ganda people are their instigators here, just as the 
Wagala, Wabende, and the Wasissa on Lake Tanga- 
nyika. I have heard and seen terrible things on my 
way to the Albert lake. I followed the traces of one 
of these robbers, Omar Ben Chalid, for six days, and 
counted fifty-one fresh corpses emaciated to the bone. 
Thirty-nine of the victims had their skulls shattered. 
Twelve hundred persons are said to have been drag- 
ged to Mengo, there being twenty to thirty negroes of 
either se:: bound to each chain. Twenty-seven, includ- 



Lake Tanganyika. 259 

ing four women, who had succeeded in escaping, met 
us half dead with hunger." 

So far was it from being true that slavery was 
ended that provinces in Africa densely popu- 
lated fifteen years ago, were to-day desert 
places, the defenceless natives having been car- 
ried off under conditions too loathsome for de- 
scription. Such disclosures give significance to 
Lord Brougham's words spoken years back 
that the slave trade should be made piracy, as 
the only way of dealing effectually with the 
abomination. The opinion of Sir William 
Mackinnon expressed in 1890 respecting the 
degradation of the native races of Africa 
by the sale of spirituous liquors, and their 
destruction by the supply of guns and ammu- 
nition to the slave-hunters, ought to be laid 
deeply to heart by friends of the African. 
Says Sir William, " It is evident, that the 
initial and most essential step towards the re- 
generation and protection of the native is the 
absolute prohibition of all trade in these agen- 
cies of destruction." Upon this question it is 
surprising to note that in view of Germany's 



260 Lake Tanganyika. 

relation to the Brussels Act, certain reported 
transactions on her part are a direct viola- 
tion of the Treaty. The London Times of 
March, 1892, had an extraordinary statement 
based on a letter written by Captain Stairs 
from Lake Tanganyika stating, " Unfortu- 
nately, he found the country flooded with gun- 
powder. It is imported into East Africa by 
the Arabs in enormous quantities with the 
written sanction of the German officials, and is 
used mainly in slave raiding and ivory steal- 
ing." It is scarcely credible that the murder- 
ous import is allowed with the sanction of the 
German Government in any of the provinces 
which fly the German flag. 

Lurid as the foregoing sketches of slavery 
will be regarded indications are not wanting 
that the rescue of the negro from his present 
misery is being attempted on a scale not pre- 
viously exhibited. Captain Lugard in Uganda 
and Commissioner Johnston in Nyasa-land are 
resisting by force the slave invasions of the 
Arab traders, and in the kingdom of Uganda 
the first mission of the Anti-Slavery League 



Lake Tanganyika. 261 

has found a home and already it has begun to 
make itself feared. Captain Stairs, the leader 
of an expedition of 1,500 men, organised by 
the Congo State in the interests of that State 
and the exploration of Katanga and, indirectly 
the suppression of slavery had, according to a 
message received in Brussels on March 10, 1892, 
reached Lake Tanganyika, and forthwith dis- 
banded gangs of Arabs collected there for the 
purpose of making raids on the surrounding 
country. The extremely critical situation in 
1 891 on the eastern shores is becoming less 
strained and unsettled. About the same time 
Captain Hinck, following the course of the 
Congo, arrived on the west shore of Lake 
Tanganyika charged with an expedition for 
crushing the slave trade in Central African 
territories, dispersed a number of Arab chiefs 
and their native levies who were preparing to 
march on unprotected villages. Confirmatory 
of these tidings comes a letter from a member 
of a missionary society addressed to the secre- 
tary of the Anti-Slavery Society, London, dated 
Tanganyika, August 31, 1891, in which the 



262 Lake Tanganyika. 

writer supplements his remarks on the mode 
of hiring slaves at Zanzibar by saying: — "Slav- 
ery is doomed, and dying fast. Where a few 
years ago thousands of slaves passed my door 
every year en route for the coast, now they are 
reduced to hundreds, and fast becoming a non- 
paying article of trade. By education and 
trade the natives here are fast getting to that 
stage when men look around and claim free- 
dom as a birthright ; and this, after all, is the 
only cure for slavery." He then adds : " As I 
have long since given my life to the snapping 
of the cruel chain which binds my fellows in 
slavery, I could not refrain from writing." 
Changes in regard to this horrible system 
cannot be wrought instantly though they 
will assuredly transcend all that have gone 
before. 

In speeding that most humanizing of all en- 
terprises, the anti-slavery cause, which Cardinal 
Lavigerie in Paris declared to be due to Prot- 
estant missionaries, the signs of the times in the 
Dark Continent are radiant with golden hopes. 
Africa shall live and take an " honourable place 



Lake Tanganyika. 26 



j 



in history ! " Under the wing of Christian 
Missions represented only by a comparative 
handful of souls of heroic mould, peace, good- 
will, self-helpfulness, industry, knowledge, com- 
merce, government, and civilisation have been 
fostered and developed. By a wonderful de- 
votion to duty of the missionary pioneers, 
light has been diffused, the voice of justice 
heard, the freedom of humanity proclaimed, 
and African brotherhood crowned. Notable 
conquests have been written across the face 
of Africa and on her shores magnificent feats 
of gallantry have been performed in the en- 
deavour to unveil her secrets and to redeem her 
fettered sons and daughters. The past, so 
marvellous, is the promise of a great to-mor- 
row for the consummation of which an illus- 
trious roll of explorers and missionaries sum- 
mon all nations in the ringing notes of a holy 
martial song of other days : 

" Here's a work of God half done, 
Here's the kingdom of His Son, 
With its triumph just begun, 
Put it through ! 



264 Lake Tanganyika. 

" For the birthright yet unsold, 
For the history yet untold, 
For the future yet unrolled, 
Put it through ! 

" 'Tis to you the trust is given, 
'Tis by you the bolt is driven, 
By the very God of Heaven, 
Put it through ! " 



